


I Cannot See Your Smiling God

by DeathPalmNut (orphan_account)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Bathing/Washing, Bugs & Insects, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Kevin Whump, M/M, Polyamory, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 53,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2768249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/DeathPalmNut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So I did that Tumblr thing where you were given a WTNV secret santa pen pal and you were supposed to send that person nice things anonymously in their ask...<br/>And, I tried, I triiieeed and I sent a couple, but I wasn't sure what to put or how to do it, and then I saw my secret santa post this:<br/>"I NEED M ORE HEALING AND NON-SMILING GOD KEVIN</p><p>CECIL AND CARLOS TAKING CARE OF HIM</p><p>CECIL AND CARLOS FALLING IN LOVE WITH HIM</p><p>AND K EVIN LOVING THEM BOTH BACK"</p><p>Okay.  This I think I can do.  Maybe not in one chapter.  Maybe not in two, but I am determined not to be a crap secret santa and  I will do this.  (Full disclosure, Kevin scares the snot out of me. Pulling on my big person undies and getting on with it...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Found in the Desert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perfect_cecilos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfect_cecilos/gifts).



> Sept 2015 - Hello there. Quick timeline note since canon has trucked way on past this; this starts a few months after Old Oak Doors B.

Carlos squinted into the harsh amber sunlight at the foreign object among the smaller scattered rocks.  Doug and the others were down the slope in a thicket of rust orange succulent-like trees, gathering their small fruits and digging up the hard tubers that grew among their shallow roots.  What was that? The plain up here was littered with thin broken slabs of sandstone shelf — all angles and points — so the dark lump looked out of place, wrong.

Cautiously, the scientist moved forward, feeling a shiver as he recognized that not only was the shape human, it was close to his size.  He stopped a few feet away feeling another wave of chill pass over him: the figure laying on his side, having drug himself as far as he could under the shelter of one of the rock slabs, looked so much like Cecil…  Carlos swallowed and drew closer.  The stranger’s clothes were in tatters, heavy with dirt and dust. His skin was wind and sunburned, even blistering in areas and one of his legs was jutted out at an awkward angle, with its shoe and sock gone, revealing a swollen green and purple ankle. Kneeling, Carlos cautiously pressed two fingers to the man’s neck just below the ear and found a faint pulse.

He knew who this was — the clothes, the facial scars in the shape of smile lines and dimples.  Cecil is going to kill me, Carlos thought swallowing, but he straightened up and called and waved to Doug and Alicia anyway.

When the warrior came to Carlos, he showed no hesitation, immediately removing his head scarf, tying it cross-shouldered and slipping Kevin into this sling to ride against his chest back to camp.  Carlos had to jog to keep up with him.

 

Back at camp, the giant brought Kevin out of the punishing sun into the dim tent he shared with Alicia.  His partner brought water and they stripped the ruined clothes off the stranger and gently rinsed him clean of the sand and grit. To Carlos, the giants looked like they were taking care of a small doll — he and Kevin by comparison hardly would come up to their knees, and he had sat comfortably riding on Doug’s shoulder several times when he’d gotten tired.  Despite their size, the scientist marveled at how careful and delicate they were tending and moving their guest.

“His ankle.  It’s probably broken.”  He pointed as they lifted Kevin.

Alicia nodded, folding a couple of their enormous blankets into a soft palette for Doug to lay him on. They took a towel and folded it as well to elevate the injured leg.  Despite jostling what had to be a very painful part of his body, Kevin hadn’t stirred or so much as gasped.  Carlos moved closer and spread a hand over his forehead — which was clammy with sweat. He could hear his breath, shallow and hoarse.

Now Alicia found a clean head scarf and covered Kevin with this lighter softer material, careful to avoid the ankle. Carlos watched as Doug and his partner rooted through packs and found herbs, various jars and bottles and other medical needs.  “What can I do?” He asked, catching the warrior’s eye.  Fishing through the jars, Doug found one of a pale cream and instructed Carlos on how to apply it to the worst of Kevin’s blistered skin.  While he did this, the two warriors steeped herbs to make a soak for the swollen ankle and brewed a dark pungent tea. 

It was too difficult for the giants to manage the smaller cups and bowls that had been fashioned for Carlos, so it fell to him to hold the tea for Kevin and coax a small amount between his parched and cracked lips. Eyes still closed, Kevin swallowed then coughed a little, before working his mouth as though looking for more.  Holding his head and shoulders in the crook of his arm, Carlos gave him another small sip.

On the one hand, it was good to see that the care appeared to be helping, but on the other hand…  ‘What am I doing?’ Carlos thought. ‘Cecil is going to think I’ve lost my mind.’  No.  No, Cecil was a pacifist at heart. He never wanted to stoop to violence.  If the radio host were here, he would be doing the same thing, assuming he could get past the blood freezing terror Kevin inspired in him.  Looking at Kevin, hurt, helpless and barely even conscious, it was hard to imagine him as the vicious vacuous Strex pawn who decorated the NVCR studio with human gore or fed live mice to that creepy mechanical ball of hair he called a pet.

‘He decorated Cecil’s studio with human remains.’ Carlos thought with complete clarity.  He looked around for Doug and slowly lowered Kevin back down on the palette. “Doug, I need to talk to you about this man.”

The warrior cocked his head curiously, but when Carlos rose and led the way out of the tent, he followed.

 

When Kevin woke, he didn’t know where he was.  All around him was soft blessed dark — no more of that brutal unrelenting sun — and he was laying somewhere much softer than the rocky ground.  But he hurt.  Every bit of him was fevered and achy, and his throat and chest burned with each breath. Too weak to lift his head, he turned it a little on the palette, trying to look around, and licked his dry lips. Someone moved beside him, and he felt a hand slip beneath his head to tilt it up and a cup was pressed to his lips.  His eyes dropped shut again, so absorbed in gratefully drinking the cool wet fluid.  It coated his raw mouth and throat, and suddenly he was so thirsty, or so aware of how impossibly thirsty he was… he was gulping…

The cup withdrew and he tried weakly to follow it with a whimper of protest.

“Slow down.  You need to take small sips or you won’t keep it down.”

Kevin blinked, trying to focus on the voice’s owner. He couldn’t though - it was too dark - so he tried to nod a little.

The cup came back and he forced himself to take small drinks and hold them in his mouth a few moments before swallowing.

“Good. That’s better.”

When the cup was empty, his head was settled back, and he felt careful fingers dab something cool and soothing onto his cracked lips. He blinked up at the person, but all he could see was a dark human shape over him.

“Where am I?”  His voice came out faint and raspy.

“Shhh. You’re at our camp. You’re safe here. Try to relax…”

Kevin felt the corners of his eyes sting. “T-thank you.” He managed.  

 

Carlos frowned, watching Kevin blink, closing those eerie black pools, as a stray tear leaked out the corner.  He deserved an award of some sort for this — did the Eternal Scouts have a ‘providing succor to your enemy’ badge? Doug gave him a playful nudge and Carlos scowled at him, still angry.

When he’d taken the warrior outside and explained to him who Kevin was and the unspeakable role he’d played in Strex’s takeover, Doug had looked serious and nodded.  But when Carlos suggested it was in their best interest to find some rope or something and tie him up for safety’s sake, the giant had smirked and rolled his eyes a little.

“You don’t understand how dangerous he is — or was.  Don’t you believe me?”

Doug made his sign for ‘past tense’ and shrugged.

“No. Of all things, this is not shrug worthy! This man poses a threat!”

In response, Doug lifted the tent flap so Carlos could see Kevin, emaciated and sick from exposure, laying limp with his broken ankle propped up in a makeshift splint. He gave Carlos a raised eyebrow look.

“Okay, maybe not right now.  But in the future — when he feels better.  What will you do then?”

Doug smiled at him, then without warning, snatched him up by the scruff of his lab coat and held him out at arms length. “No, no no!” Carlos pitched and kicked and swore, but he couldn’t even lay a finger on the giant. 

“Fine.” He panted, giving up and letting himself dangle. “Fine. You make a good point.  But he didn’t do those things with brute size or strength — he did them with conniving.  Doug? Would you please put me down?”

 

Now Carlos had been tasked with sitting with Kevin and getting him to drink a little at regular intervals to combat the dehydration.  The army normally let Carlos do as he pleased - conducting his scientific observations and scouting for signs of an oak door — and he couldn’t decide if him being assigned to Kevin duty was out of practical concern because he was the same size and it was harder for the warriors to handle smaller proportioned objects gently, or if he was being forced to be nice because he’d suggested Kevin might kill them all in their sleep if given half a chance. Maybe both. Doug had a weird sense of humor.

He glanced out the tent flap as Alicia entered, seeing it was getting dark outside.  The temperature was beginning to drop too — just as it did in the Night Vale desert. Carlos unknotted his flannel shirt from his waist and pulled it on, glancing down at Kevin. Both sides of the man’s face were streaked now where more tears had silently slipped from his closed eyes.

Carlos found his bandana and wiped them away.  “Hey now.  Take it easy.”

Kevin’s lip trembled. “Please.” He whispered. “Please…”

“Kevin?  Is it pain?  Tell me what you need.“ Carlos knelt over him, unsure if the other man was speaking to him, or even if he knew he was speaking aloud at all. Kevin only whimpered in response, and touching his brow, Carlos realized it was probably caused by fever.  Jesus, without the scars and with his eyes closed, he was a dead ringer for Cecil… Carlos slipped an arm under his shoulders to hold him and stroked his hair back. “It’s alright. Easy now.  We’re going to take care of you. It’s alright.”  

Alicia approached bringing a bowl of steeped herbs and some rags.  Soaking one of the cloths, they folded a compress and touched it to Kevin’s forehead.  He flinched, then gasped and sighed, relaxing, and the giant arranged it across his brow, gently pressing the edges to his temples.  Carlos took one of the others and did the same, only using his to cool Kevin’s cheeks and down the sides of his neck.  It seemed to help, because Kevin quieted and appeared to give in to fitful sleep.

Carlos stood awkwardly, fishing his cell phone out of his jeans. When Alicia looked at him askance, he told them, “I’m going outside.  I need to call Cecil.”

 

_To be continued..._


	2. The Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil gets a strange sort of front row seat to the events in the otherworld desert.
> 
> .........................

Cecil fumbled to turn his radio off when he heard his phone chime.  Classical whale song and chalkboard scratching could wait when Carlos was calling. Only the alert tone was for Skype… He snatched up the phone eagerly.

“Carlos!” He beamed down at the screen. “You almost never use Skype.”

The scientist looked agitated — or was that worried? Cecil reigned in his smile.

“I really needed to see your face.” Carlos told him. “Your eyes.”

Carlos had never complemented Cecil’s eyes before, and his happy grin crept back as his heart felt a warm squeeze. “Oh Carlos… It’s good to see you too.” Cecil paused, watching as Carlos searched his face then looked over his shoulder and back quickly. “What’s wrong? What’s going on there?”

Swallowing, Carlos began to explain…

 

To Cecil’s credit, he didn’t interrupt Carlos as he described the events of the last long day, but the hard look of fear-kept-in-check showed in his eyes and in the tight line of his mouth. “Your friends there — you have to make them understand.” Cecil whispered at last. “That man is a monster… They have no idea what he might do when he recovers.”

“I know. I tried to tell Doug, but all he sees is the shape Kevin’s in now…”

Cecil nodded, and Carlos could see he was still working to remain calm, choosing his words carefully.  “But this gives you some time though? Right? If you find a door soon, it won’t matter —“

They were interrupted by a scream.

Carlos dropped his phone, and Cecil saw a blurred panorama of dark desert, then a sky full of foreign stars. “Carlos? Carlos!” He shouted down at his tiny screen.

The stars vanished and were replaced by a blur and then Carlos reappeared, bobbing as he ran with the device. “I’m here. Got to see what happened—“

It was hard to see clearly as Carlos moved. A blur of tent flap, darkness and then orange lantern light, and a horrible animal moaning. The view shifted, dropped sickeningly and then was steady, but sideways; the phone had fallen again.  Cecil could see the rugs of the tent floor and several of the warriors a few feet away around something — and Carlos was over in the middle of them shouting questions.  One of the giants signed to him and brushed him back with a hand dismissively.

“Is that Kevin making that noise?” Cecil asked. But Carlos was too far away to hear. The scientist stood watching whatever was taking place in the middle of that group, until he flinched, and Cecil could hear whatever was groaning cry out sharply again. The sound made him cringe, and he shakily set his own phone on his knees so he could hug himself as he waited… 

Finally Carlos remembered the device and returned. “What’s happening?” Cecil blurted.

Carlos swallowed. “Doug says they had been waiting for the swelling on his foot to go down.  They just set the bone on his broken ankle. It took two tries to get it in line.” 

“Oh god.”

“I need to go Cecil. They want me to help them with him…”

“That sound he made…”

Carlos frowned and nodded. “I know.”

“Carlos, please don’t disconnect yet.” Cecil could see that he was already moving back across the tent.

“It’ll be too hard to talk.”

“Just set the phone nearby. It’s okay if you can’t talk to me — I just need to hear and see you for a little longer.”

Carlos nodded, and Cecil saw his palm covering the screen as he propped the phone on something.  Now in front of him, Cecil watched Carlos kneeling by a pallet where Kevin lay, eyes closed, trembling and panting in pain.  He watched as his boyfriend worked his hands behind Kevin’s head and neck, lifting so a folded towel could be pillowed behind it. As he did this, Kevin twitched, jerking his head like a reflex. Carlos paused, feeling on the injured man’s neck, and then calling out to Doug and the others.  When Doug arrived, Carlos pivoted Kevin partway onto his shoulder, and Cecil could see his face: eyes closed, sunburnt, sweating and drawn in agony. What was Carlos doing to the back of his neck?  Cecil’s eyes widened in horror as Carlos’s hand drew away, bloody, but with a segmented shining body about two inches long, trailing even longer hairlike wires each glistening with blood.

The thing in Carlos’s hand wriggled, struggling and bent back on itself letting it’s hairlike appendages grasp and wrap around his fingers.  He flicked his wrist, whipping them off and looked around frantically until Doug shoved a large glass jug over towards him and Carlos pushed the thing down the neck and rammed the stopper in. Breathing hard, he examined his fingers and on reflex kicked the jar away from himself in disgust.  It settled against the front of his phone, filling Cecil’s screen with a close up image of the thing: it was mechanical, but looked like a predatory insect with numerous fine wire feelers and a partially crushed head and abdomen. As it sparked and popped, trying to crawl up the inside of the glass, Cecil could see a triangle logo and the legend “Property of Strex Corp. Synergist Inc.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I'll get to the nice bits for Kevin soon.


	3. Eyes on the Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes your problem is your solution.

..............................

 

It had taken several minutes to staunch the flow of blood from the back of Kevin’s neck: the wound up high just within the hairline at the base of his skull.  And it took Carlos even longer to talk Cecil into getting off the phone.

“That thing. Can it get out of there? Did it hurt your hand?  What is it?”

“I don’t know — I wish I had the rest of my equipment here, but I don’t even have a microscope.” He held his fingers before the phone for Cecil. “My hand’s fine though.  Those wires… ” Carlos shook his head.

Cecil could see small dark pin pricks in the pad of several of Carlos’s fingers. “It can’t get out?”

“No. Cecil.  It’s barely even moving now.” The scientist held up the jug where the thing slowly raised and lowered it’s thin legs in a hesitant rhythm, like an alien hand lazily drumming it’s fingers. “I think it’s running out of juice. Look, Cecil.  I have to go…”

 

Now he was sitting by the brazier in the tent with one of the giant’s towels he used as a blanket pulled around his shoulders, watching the thing in the glass jug while he rummaged through the bottles and jars of Doug and Alicia’s supplies.  Kevin lay in front of him; he’d twitched several times after the thing’s removal but now he was still, his black eyes only open in slits as he wheezed. Carlos couldn’t tell if he was awake or not, and he couldn’t tell what the signs and notations on all these containers meant.

“What do you have here for pain?” He barked at Doug who was brewing more of the dark tea they’d given Kevin earlier.

The warriors eyebrows went up, and he quickly stepped over to Carlos and plucked one container from his hands and another from the pile in his lap. But instead of digging into them, he set them up on a high tent beam.

“What are you doing — you just set a broken bone! Look at him!” Carlos stood up angrily, upsetting the jug with the device — he dove back to catch it before it tipped over.

Doug shook his head and began signing to Carlos that they didn’t know how to use all of their medicines on outsiders, specifically ones a fraction of their size, without possibly overdosing and killing them.  He went back to straining the tea.

Fuming, Carlos started to sit back down, then remembered his own satchel.  Finding it, he dumped out his notebooks, graphs, Claritin and, yes, a rattle told him the partial bottle of Tylenol was still at the bottom.

Shaking out two pills, he lifted Kevin’s head and patted his cheeks to rouse him.  “Take these, and drink. That’s it.” He held water for him to sip. “Not much but it might take the edge off.”

Kevin swallowed, but otherwise didn’t respond. 

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

It had been three days.  Three days of staying in or at least close to the tent and looking after his boyfriend’s doppelgänger. The furthest he’d gone from it was when he chased after Alicia who had grabbed up the jug with a look that read clearly of their intent to dispose of something nasty.  But once he’d convinced them that the device needed to be studied, not destroyed, it was back to the tent. Kevin stayed unconscious or at least in a docile stupor for the first two days, but could be coaxed into drinking or swallowing a couple of the rapidly vanishing pain pills or even eating a little soup.  Sometimes he cried out in his sleep or seemed to have nightmares, and Alicia and Doug would put their hands under his head, shoulders and back, rubbing and rocking gently until he quieted. By the third day, he was more alert, blinking owlishly in the dim tent and softly asking questions.

“Where am I?”

Feeling like he was talking to a little kid, Carlos kept it curt and simple. “A tent in our camp.  We found you in the desert.” 

“My leg… my foot hurts.” 

“Your ankle is broken. I think it’s set okay though.  Keep it still.” 

“Who are you?”

“You don’t recognize me?”  

“We’ve met? Y-your voice sounds familiar.”

Carlos looked at him suspiciously and waved a hand in front of his face, but Kevin gave no indication that he saw anything.  “My name’s Carlos. Can you tell me your name?”

Kevin’s eyes widened and then his lower lip began to tremble. “I-I…” He faltered.

“It’s okay. You want a hint?” Doug, across the tent, gave him the stink eye for toying with him. Carlos ignored him. 

“You know my name?” Kevin whispered reverently.  Carlos saw that he was on the verge of tears with this information and felt a small stab of guilt.

“Relax, okay? Your name is Kevin.”

The other man lit up with recognition. “And you know me? We’re friends?”

Carlos saw Doug narrow his eyes at him and he resisted the urge to flip the giant off. “I’ve been helping  take care of you.  Even let you have my stash of Tylenol.  And Doug here is really your friend because he’s helped you with the bed pan.”

Kevin smiled, and Carlos felt his face redden at the look of naked gratitude. “Thank you.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

When Alicia had returned to the tent, Carlos had begged off for a break to call Cecil. Now he was a little ways from camp with the jug, a lantern and his cell phone.

“Watch this.” He made sure his boyfriend had a clear view of the inside of the container where he lay his hand against it.  As his skin warmed the glass, the device, looking quite dead, stiff legs in the air, slowly arched, stretched and in a fluid motion, rolled over to begin clawing its appendages against the glass. Carlos pulled his hand away and the thing continued, uselessly, gradually fluttering its legs slower and slower until it curled and twisted belly up again and was still. “I can’t tell much without disassembling it, but it seems to be able to draw power from the body’s electrical impulses.”

“Not body heat?” Cecil surprised himself with this question. It seemed a smart distinction.

“I wondered that too. But I’ve tried putting it near the fire and other sources of heat and it only does this next to people.”

“‘People’?” Cecil echoed. “Carlos, you _did_ _not_ stick that thing near Alicia’s dog!”

“It was for science. Besides, nothing happened.  My theory is that it was designed solely for human implantation and can tell the difference.  However, that does not rule out the possibility that these events observed are anomalous…”

“Anomalous?”

“That they might be skewed by something — like that this device is damaged and not working at full capacity.”

Cecil nodded, remembering how it had sparked from the crushed areas…

“Also, based on how it resisted removal, and its behavior in my hand, I think it could be autonomous.”

“Carlos, if you are telling me that something I can’t kill with a can of Raid could be creeping towards me from Desert Bluffs intent on climbing in my skull of its own volition…”

Carlos rolled his eyes. “Of course not Cecil.  I just demonstrated to you that it doesn’t have its own energy supply for that — well, unless of course the damaged portions contained the auxiliary batteries…”  

Cecil shuddered. “Okay, um, changing the subject now?” There was a hint of pleading in his voice.

Carlos looked down at Cecil on the phone and blinked, then smiled. “Yeah, sorry. No more mad scientist stuff.”

“Tell me about your other problem?”

Carlos sighed. “He’s out of it mostly, and when he’s awake, he’s confused and in pain.  He was asking questions today, so I think he’s getting better, but he couldn’t remember his name. Also, other than setting the bone and keeping him fed and hydrated, the people here can’t do much for him — they’re afraid their drugs would hurt us.  And without hospital equipment, forget trying to examine what that bug might have done or damaged.”

 

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

By the end of the fifth day, Carlos was ready to climb the woven canvas walls.  He’d paced the tent, knowing a large group of scouts was returning today, but when Alicia came in and signed to him that they had no news about doors, he pulled out his phone to text Cecil his frustration, then angrily stuffed it right back in his pocket. No, he wouldn’t vent at Cecil who would be equally disappointed. Alicia watched this and signed to him to go out and stretch his legs.

He ran through the camp, quickly joined by the fluffy dog, and then out of the tents towards the foothills where he could see the dark outline of the lighthouse on the mountain.  He frowned. Just his luck, he got a reprieve and it was already so late it was getting dark… He pulled out his phone again and bit his lip feeling a weird stab of anger as he looked at it.  It wasn’t enough. He didn’t want a voice or even a face on a screen… What he wanted was something like an animal longing — touch, smells, a physical body to grasp and hold and to grip him back.  And he didn’t want to return to that tent and see what looked like his boyfriend suffering.  He pocketed the phone again and kept running towards the mountain until the sun fully set and the dog began to herd him unwillingly back to camp.

 

Carlos came back in, tired and dropped down among his little pile of belongings.  The dog followed him and settled nearby as he began to undress and wash up, using one of the warriors water cups as a basin.

“Who’s there?”

“Just me, Kevin.” Carlos sighed.  He hadn’t noticed that he was awake and propped up.

“What’s wrong?”

The scientist looked over at the other man doubtfully. “Do you remember how you got here?  Not here at camp, but into this desert?” 

Kevin didn’t.

So Carlos began to explain. He didn’t go into townships and takeovers — just the basics of their world and the passages going to others and how he was ready to go home, but in all the time he’d been here, no matter how many helped him look, he hadn’t found a single old oak door.  When he finished, he tugged a tunic he’d made from a discarded scarf over his head, spread out the towel he was going to sleep on near Kevin and lay down with a sigh.

Kevin was quiet a moment. “I see them all the time. The light leaking through as they open and close hurts my eyes.”

Carlos sat up at this, but he managed to keep his voice even. “You _see_ them?”

“Yes. As they move — it’s the brightest thing.”

“Will you help me find one?”

Kevin nodded. “But you have to take me back with you.  I want to go home too.”

“Of course.”

Kevin brightened. “My boyfriend — he was helping build the wind turbine farm outside of Desert Bluffs.  He’s very smart,” Kevin began with a small smile. “I can’t remember though… …Do you know if the plant opened? I haven’t seen him since he left for the build.  There was a rumor another company was buying out and privatizing the project.” He blinked and rubbed his eyes with a balled fist. “I kind of hope they sold. The new company was supposed to have all the best new technology — he loves all that.” He yawned. “Anyway, I miss him.”

“Kevin?” Carlos studied his blank black eyes. “Can you see me?”

“Well, sure. It’s really dark in here though, but you’re right there.” Kevin pointed towards him.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

Kevin laughed a little. “Who could see that without the lantern? …Silly.” He took a shuddering breath. “Carlos?” He continued, lowering his voice, and the scientist could see sweat beading on his forehead. “My foot…”

Carlos nodded. “Easy. Let me find my bag.” He fished out the pill bottle and shook a couple into his hand. There weren’t many left, but he helped Kevin down the two with some of the tea and didn’t mention it. “Here,” he said scooping his arm behind his shoulders and removing the extra rolled towel and laying him back. “Try to relax. Pain’s worse when you exert yourself.”

“Could we still talk? I like talking to you.”

Carlos frowned. “Tomorrow. If you feel up to it then, we can start looking — let’s sleep now.”

Kevin closed his eyes smiling. “Smart.” He said drowsy.

Settling down against the warmth of the dog and pulling Doug’s scarf and towel over himself, Carlos reached over to turn down the lantern. “Kevin?” He asked as a thought crossed his mind. “What do you think of Night Vale?”

“Hmm. I’m sure it’s nice, but I wouldn’t know. I’m such a homebody.” He murmured. “Have you been there?”

 

 

_and still to be continued..._


	4. Stepping Through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doors are just a formality.

................................

Carlos’s eyes snapped open in the morning to a rare, but still recognizable sound. It was the pock-pock patter of rain on the canvas and oil cloth.  Beside him, Kevin was still asleep, pale and sweating.  Carlos let him be, figuring fevered sleep was better than none, and crawled to the edge of the tent to look outside.

“No, no, no…” He muttered seeing the steel grey pea soup.

He knew talking Doug and Alicia into moving Kevin to look for a door would be a fight, but to try during one of the deserts thunderstorms would be pointless.

Dragging the scarf around him like a cape, he went to the brazier and dipped out tea from Doug’s cup. The warrior was repairing straps on some boots. He nodded at the scientist in greeting, then paused seeing Carlos’s expression and signed asking what was wrong.

Carlos didn’t want to speak; didn’t have words for it. In his time among them, he’d gathered a fair vocabulary of their signs, but still hadn’t mastered the smooth syntax to fluently put them together into sophisticated expressions.  And right now he was biting back frustration, so what came out was pidgin, a list of words: weather, all things, weight, down, and then either sad or tired… He couldn’t remember the difference between those two.

Doug put out his hand and Carlos leaned on his palm, letting Doug rub his back with his thumb. It wasn’t Cecil, but he was glad of the contact and attention.

Cecil.

Despite being an outsider, Doug and Alicia looked out for Carlos as though he were one of their own members. And even without a frame of reference for homesickness (Carlos got the impression that they stayed within the same group from cradle to grave, although he’d never asked) they showed concern about him being lonely. Who at home was doing that for Cecil? Was he just going back and forth from their empty apartment to the isolation of his booth each day and no one noticed because his voice still came on like clockwork?

He pushed back from Doug’s hand and looked up at the warrior’s unmasked face. “I need to go home Doug.  My partner, my boyfriend needs me.  And Kevin there needs to go too so he can see one of our doctors.  He told me last night he can see the doors we need to find.” Carlos paused, watching Doug’s face. “He said he would help me look today.”

Doug signed about the steady storm.

“I know we can’t in the rain—“

The warrior made a curt chopping motion, preventing Carlos from continuing to interrupt and gave Kevin a significant look. “He is hardly better after five days and needs to be with his own people. When the storm stops, I’ll help you.” He signed. Carlos threw himself on Doug’s hand and hugged it.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Carlos tried calling Cecil, but it went to voice mail.  Time in Night Vale being what it was, maybe that was because he was on the air, fending off Station Management in a staff meeting, or any number of things. Carlos excitedly told him to call back.

The relief that Doug was on board was enough to buoy Carlos’s spirits and when Kevin woke the scientist washed his face, helped him sit up and brought him tea and some of the cooked down mashed tubers.

“You remember what we talked about last night?”

Kevin nodded, swallowing tea. “The doors.”

“Right.  I talked to Doug and he says he’ll help us go out when this rain lets up. So, in the meantime I wanted to try a couple things with you — a couple tests — about light. I’m going to move some lamps around, and you’re going to tell me when it’s bright and when it’s dark.” Carlos drew a pair of the lanterns over to them.

Kevin grinned. “Like the hot and cold game?”

“Exactly.  Oh, here. I almost forgot.” He shook the last of the Tylenol into his hand. “There’s two left. That’s a full dose.  Or we can cut them up.”

“How heavy is the rain?”

“Pretty steady.”

“One now, one later?” 

“You got it.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

“Whatever his eyes are doing or not doing, it doesn’t make a any sense.  There’s no pattern I can see.” It was late afternoon and Cecil had called back, so Carlos had gone to the far side of the tent behind some rugs and storage sacks for privacy. He spoke low, despite the fact that Kevin was asleep again and Doug and Alicia had gone to help shore up a hut that was taking on water from the storm. “It’ll be as bright as lights on in the house, and he says it’s dark. Most of the time he can make out large general shapes, but not enough details to tell who it is or what it is. The lantern could singe his cheek and he wouldn’t know they were there. But if he’s outside, the sun is unbearable. Says it makes his eyes throb. And even weirder, sometimes he sees flashes of light in the tent, when nothing has happened. Like a flash bulb going off.”

The radio host was quiet.

“Cecil?”

“I’m here.  It’s just, if what you are saying is true, then how could he tell if a door was there? It sounds like you’re telling me he’s blind.”

“When he sees those flashes of light, the bug moves.”

The silence on the other end of the phone made Carlos think Cecil was making his deep-thought frowning face. The one Carlos called ‘scrunch face’ and he smiled despite himself.  “So? I don’t see how that helps.” Cecil complained.

“Cecil? Do you remember the trans-dimensional oranges? I don’t think it has anything to do with actual light and dark.  I think Strex came up with some built in sensor in their technology to warn their people about the doors, the oranges — things they wouldn’t want their workers to stumble across.”

“But the bug isn’t in his head.”

“No, but all the appendages on that thing.  It’s like hair, like threads. And from pulling it out, I can tell you it was rooted down in there - imagine if it was signaling all parts of Kevin’s brain, it would have to penetrate, pierce into every wrinkle, every lobe. Things could have, in fact almost most certainly did, brake off.”

“Carlos?”

“Too much mad scientist?”

“I could handle it better if I knew you were safe.”

“Okay. It’s okay.” Carlos’s pushed aside the bug and his theories and tried to think of something else to tell Cecil. “So, last night, Kevin started telling me about his boyfriend.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

It was after dark, the rain had stopped, but Doug and Alicia hadn’t returned to the tent. Carlos looked up and down the camp from out the flap, considering going to hunt for them. But then Kevin stirred and Carlos went to help him with the last pill.

“Thank you. Is the storm over?”

“Yeah.” Carlos felt impatient, and didn’t trust himself to keep talking. His gambit to change the subject with Cecil earlier had bombed on him as he’d quickly realized he shifted the topic from creepy science to sad loneliness, and all Cecil did was quiz him on Kevin’s memory and whether he knew how many and who of Desert Bluffs were Strex casualties.

“That’s good.” Kevin tried to smile, but he clearly hurt. It wasn't like the Tylenol did much for his level of pain and cutting the dose made it useless.

Before he could say more, the tent flap pulled back and Doug came in carrying a long basket.  Carlos grinned with relief. “You know what’s better?  Doug is about to help us go hunt for that door.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

“I hope our time and place match again soon.” Dana had said.  That was the whole issue with finding the doors. Never mind the mechanics of how they worked. The ones that had seemed so permanent, that had remained in place long enough to be discovered and wondered about, could be in a different time and place in a mercurial minute. Their staying put for so long could only be explained as maybe the whim of an angel, no, Erika. The whim of Erika, Carlos thought quickly.

“It’s a black glowing.” Kevin said. “And then it turns into the most _blinding light_.”

Somehow Kevin could not only see a dimensional hole open up, he could see the faint ripple and then the gentle glowing that preceded the full on riff, and depending on the size, he could guess how long it would remain there and be accessible. The old oak doors — their physical framework and wood — was only a tool to keep the hole in one place, able to be opened or closed, and they had vanished with the angel’s need of them.  And while Carlos and everyone else needed that physical framework to spot them, Kevin could see budding riffs, open riffs and aged closing riffs anywhere they might appear.

He could not, however, see the what or the where that lay on the other side.

Which is how it was that at 7:16 pm Night Vale time, Michelle Nguyen slammed on her brakes and spun out in the middle of Oxford street, (making her digitally remastered Buddy Holly cd skip horribly) to avoid hitting the ankle of a giant masked warrior carrying a human sized basket and with a scientist holding a glass jug containing a nano-tech bug sitting on his shoulder.

 

_and still to be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It only took 4 chapters but I got them out of the desert! Also, the first name in the writing prompt request was Cecil -- so I sort of stink since Cecil's been stuck on the sidelines via phone. Hoping to rectify that now...


	5. Drone and Shell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos doesn't get to hang on to everything he brought back from the otherworld desert.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Roger Singh, like many people, hated his job.  Even his new job. After his brush with the Condo development, he’d wanted to get out from behind a desk, move around, hell, even see the sun and new faces and do something that helped people, something useful and worthwhile.

_“Care for your fellow citizen. Be the helping hands in a crisis! Maybe even be a hero! The Night Vale Medical board wants you to know, you’d be perfect, just perfect as a first responder! Also, they said to tell you, you can totally pull off skinny jeans.  Really.”_

In his first shift as an EMT, he’d worked Valentine’s Day weekend, pulling lifeless bodies, peppered with dozens of chalky pastel hearts that said “Oh you kid” and “Hot stuff” from the rubble of collapsed buildings… And then there were the ones turned inside out from champaign toasts and hand dipped truffles…

Since then, in all the calls and runs he’d made, the only live faces he saw were those of his fellow ambulance team and that of Linda, the city coroner. As for the rest, he might as well have become a garbage man or a street cleaner…

Carlos however, did not know any of this, so he was a little confused when after they were loaded in the ambulance and the rest of the crew focused on Kevin, Roger hugged Michelle Nguyen and tearfully offered him a beer.

“Jesus and Mary Chain, get off me! What is your deal?”

The ambulance rounded a corner, and Carlos saw red and blue lights out the back window — the sheriff’s secret police had a phalanx of motorcycles and squad cars following them. Doug, abashed at causing the car crash, had retreated through the riff once he saw Michelle get out and begin swearing at him about how OVER Flansburgh and Linnell she was. “I mean, Flood was an okay album but now they just do kids music and podcasts!” Carlos didn’t even get to say goodbye before the emergency crew descended and he got a call through to Cecil that he was being taken to Night Vale General.

“Carlos?”

“I’m right here Kevin. You’re okay.” He clutched the glass jug hidden in his lab coat and watched an EMT load a syringe and shoot it into the IV line.

“I’m giving you some medicine for pain.  You should feel it real soon.”

Soon meant almost instantly. Carlos smirked watching Kevin’s lined face relax. “Is that the good stuff?”

Kevin licked his lips and blinked dreamily. “Uh huh.” His voice was muffled by the oxygen mask.

“Good. Feeling better?”

“Yeah…” His head lolled over as the drugs knocked him out.

 

At the hospital, a wave of officers followed the ambulance team and herded them into an enclosed room off the ER.  Carlos was cornered and seated on a gurney alternately being examined by a physician and grilled by black clad officers. Cecil, in these brushes with the jack booted security of Night Vale, had advised Carlos to simply hand over his ID and go limp as much as he could.  Which he would have continued to do, except across the room, the SSPOs were arguing with the ER doctor, had handcuffed Kevin’s unconscious body to the gurney and were reading him his Miranda rights — or rather the Night Vale heavily redacted equivalent.

“You can’t take him into custody here — not until he’s gotten treatment.” Carlos pushed his way through the officers and grabbed at the handcuffs.

“Carlos!” Cecil had found him and was wading into the fray.

“I can’t in good conscience allow you to remove him from the hospital before…” The doctor protested.

One officer barred Carlos and Cecil from the bed with a black riot baton. Another pushed the doctor to the wall by the shoulder and held him. “We are under orders to collect all, ALL, remains of Strexcorp Synergist Inc. Citizens are under orders to turn over all equipment of Strexcorp Synergist Inc. For the safety and security of Night Vale, Sheriff’s decree six, article 21. Paragraph 8. Section 5.” The voice came out static-y like response chatter on a CB radio.

A third officer pulled out a small hand held, and brandished it at them, threatening to taser them. Everyone froze.

To Carlos’s horror, this officer pointed it at Kevin’s limp form, right at his chest.

But when he pressed the button, only a beam of purple light scanned out of the device, running up Kevin’s center, to the top of his head and back. 

The SSPO closest to Carlos consulted a tablet and Carlos could see a dossier page open with Kevin’s mugshot on it next to a diagram of the mechanical bug. He caught a snatch of the text: “Drone/Worker. Communications, Terrorism.” Before the officer flipped the screen towards the one holding the scanner.

“Abort. That’s a shell. Repeat. That’s a shell.”

“I’m still getting a target signal.”

Carlos realized what was about to happen a second too late. The officer pointed the scanner at him and it went berserk. The others grabbed his arms and discovered the jar wrapped under his lab coat and wrested it out of his grip. Before he could protest, they had transferred the handcuffs from Kevin to the neck and handle of the jar and began Mirandizing it. 

He tried to protest, but Cecil held him back. “Don’t. You can’t argue with them.”

 

Once the bug was removed, the other officers separated Carlos and took a statement while a doctor checked him over. After providing a signature via bloody thumbprint, he was released and allowed to join Cecil.  Carlos clutched him, dazed, and looked around the ER, but didn’t see Kevin. “Where did they take him?”

“X-rays and admitting.” Cecil told him. “The orderly said they would try to reach someone in Desert Bluffs for him.” He led Carlos towards the door. “Do you think they’ll be able to?”

Carlos shook his head. “I don’t know. Please, lets get out of here.”

As they passed the sliding doors to the ambulance bay, Carlos saw one of the EMTs, Roger, his name tag said, smile and press a cold pack to the bruise on Michelle’s forehead.

“So really, there are no decent bands without three initials. Neutral Milk Hotel. Blue Oyster Cult. Camper Van Beethoven. I think it’s like cabala…”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Free from the hospital, Carlos couldn’t hide the relief and happiness that washed over him as it sank in that he was home, and Cecil had never seen him act so bubbly. Out the door and into the parking lot, he slid his arms around Cecil’s waist and gave him a spine squeezing hug, pressing up against him from behind from hips to cheek. 

“Mine. My boyfriend.” He took a deep breath of Cecil’s hair, his skin, his warmth.

“I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too. God, I could feel that hole everyday - but I don’t think I understood how much I missed _home_.”

“Home?” Cecil turned around, his eyes big, his hands touching Carlos’s chest.

“My home.” Carlos smiled in confirmation and kissed Cecil’s confused face happily and in several places.

 

At the apartment, Carlos’s giddy enthusiasm continued.  When Cecil unlocked the door, Carlos grabbed him and waltzed him into the living room. “I get to sleep in _my bed_ , after taking a hot shower in _my_ bath with real soap and shampoo…  and then I get to put on clean clothes. _My clothes_. And I get to hold and squeeze _my boyfriend_.” He spun Cecil and swept him low in a dip.

“Are you hungry? I can fix us something while you’re in the shower — we should celebrate.” 

Carlos grinned. “God yes. Scrambled eggs. Grilled cheese.”

Cecil’s eyebrows went up. “Really?”

“Yes. You laugh, but you don’t know — all they eat are tubers and roots and cactus pads and maybe, maybe a few lizards and everything is tough and gritty and sand and dirt get into everything when you live in a tent. Please, scrambled eggs.” He brought Cecil back to his feet and kissed him gently.

“Anything you want.” Cecil smiled. “Go, enjoy that shower.”

“If I’m not back in twenty minutes…”

“I’m coming in after you.”

 

Over dinner, Cecil mostly sipped tea, unable to take his eyes off Carlos.  The scientist was a little wind burned, and from how his pajamas hung a little looser, he’d lost some weight. And his hair was longer, which Cecil was fine with. One hundred percent fine with that.  And it made him happy to watch him enjoy the simple food and eyes shining, tell him about Doug and Alicia. “I wish you could have met them and seen it, Cecil. You would have loved the constellations and the color of the sunsets. Oh god, and the dog…”

Cecil smiled watching him gulp down a glass of orange milk. How funny to miss cold milk.

 

Between the hot shower and a full stomach, the excitement began to sink into drowsiness and Carlos grinned, tugging Cecil into the bed and burrowing under the covers.  He wrapped his arms around him and pulled him in possessively, spooning him from behind — god he’d missed this delicious warmth — and burying his nose in his hair and neck with a contented sigh. As he let his eyes drop shut, he could feel Cecil running his hands along his forearms and gently squeezing his fingers, as though reassuring himself of their presence and details.

 

Carlos slept hard for probably an hour or so — maybe longer. But at some point he found himself awake in the dark. And maybe it was the rhythm of his breath, or a slight tension he could feel through his arms, but he knew Cecil was awake too.

“Can’t sleep?” He whispered.

“Uh-uh. I can’t stop thinking about him.”

“Kevin?”

Cecil nodded. “He’s up there alone. No one there if he wakes up or if he gets confused. What if they can’t find his family or anyone in Desert Bluffs?”

Carlos frowned, spreading a hand on Cecil’s back and rubbing in soft soothing circles.

“I can't help thinking he doesn’t even know what’s happening really, with that thing gone. Carlos, I know what it’s like not to be able to remember things right — you’ve never gone through reeducation— it’s horrible… or to feel trapped like Fey or manipulated, possessed by something more powerful than you.”

Carlos tugged at Cecil, getting him to roll over and face him. “You want to go back up there?”

In response, Cecil pushed his head into the crook of the scientist’s shoulder and nuzzled his neck, hiding his face before he spoke again in a tremulous whisper. “Do you think he's scared? I do want to — just to make sure he’s okay. I wouldn’t have you back without him. I owe him for that.”

Carlos gave him a firm squeeze before flipping the blankets back. “Alright then. I’ll drive.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Kevin was awake, weakly hugging one of the lumpy hospital pillows and staring uselessly around the room at the dark shapes he couldn’t make out or recognize. One of his hands had an IV needle in the back of it and his foot was now immobilized in a hard cast, propped up. Everything smelled of disinfectant and with the door open, there was the blare of a TV from the nurses station and strange voices of people he didn’t know. He’d been about to try to call out for someone, when one of the voices turned angry and shouted — another patient in the hall was disoriented — and he trembled and stayed quiet. His ankle was throbbing, but he didn’t know about, much less the location of the call button for a nurse. Someone would come.  This was a hospital, right? That’s where Carlos had said he was going…

Footsteps and dark shapes in the doorway made him shrink back in the bed.

“Kevin?”

The voice was familiar, though he couldn’t place from where. “Hello. Wh-who’s there?”

“It’s Carlos and Cecil.”

Kevin knew _that_ voice, and he smiled, blushing profusely, as relieved tears spilled out of his eyes. “Carlos.” He breathed. “Is - is Cecil your friend?”

“We’ve met before, Kevin.” Cecil told him, making his voice gentle and even.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I don’t remember. Were we friends?” His voice, though light, quavered as he spoke.

“Acquaintances.” Cecil said. “Is your ankle hurting?”

Biting his bottom lip, Kevin nodded eagerly.

“Okay.” Carlos searched the blankets for the controller with the call button. When his hand brushed Kevin’s, Cecil’s eyes widened to see Kevin grab it and cling to his fingers. Carlos frowned, but let him, and pressed the call button with his free hand. “Hang on. We’ll get you some meds for that.”

Cecil found some tissues and wiped Kevin’s face. “We thought you might need some company. I know I hate trying to sleep in a strange place.”

Kevin blinked wonderingly at Cecil as though trying to focus on his face. “Thank you.” He whispered.

 

 

_ever yet to be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ug. Couldn't leave Kevin alone on Christmas Eve. Hope everyone is having a nice holiday.  
> (stomps off grumbling)
> 
> Thanks for reading and don't forget, comments feed the Krampus, er, I mean secret Santa...


	6. Product Recall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard for Carlos to investigate the bug when all he has is the trail it left behind.

.................

 

It didn’t take long for the night nurse to bring additional pain pills, but by then Cecil had pulled up a chair and begun talking to Kevin to try to calm him and help him sleep.

Carlos guessed it just came with the territory of using his voice to make a living, but it never ceased to amaze him how Cecil could always find words.  Not just words, but words to serve his purpose.  He didn’t say anything upsetting, or even anything that required a response. Instead he simply oriented Kevin telling him where he was and the current time and the day of the week.  He helped him find the beds control paddle, where the call button was and then in the same light conversational soft patter, suggested he should recline the mattress prone and maybe close his eyes.

“Have you ever broken a bone before?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It won’t keep hurting so much now that it’s in a cast. That’ll taper off soon. It’s really late though, you should try to sleep now.”

Carlos felt Kevin’s hold tighten on his hand. “Are you leaving? Please…”

Cecil frowned and put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “No, no. We’ll stay for awhile.”

“Cecil has to work tomorrow,” Carlos told him. “But I can check on you. And the hospital is trying to reach your family or friends to let them know where you are.”

Kevin smiled at this. “They are?”

“Yep. Nothing to worry about.” Carlos told him.

“Will you keep talking to me?”

Cecil began to spool out the less frightening bits of the community news in a gentle lull, then segued right into reciting that years poetry week entries softly.  Carlos had no idea how Cecil could simply access from memory word for word some of the segments of his broadcast - especially when he was notorious for having lost time or losing whole segments of his childhood — but if he was going to remember and recite something, Carlos supposed Night Vale blank verse was better than ad copy.  Often with ad copy, he thought Cecil was channeling something - something dark that was only taking the mundane guise of an Applebee’s or Red Lobster promo spot. But whatever.  The sponsors never complained and their checks cleared.

Ode to the Brownstone Spire seemed to do the trick and Kevin’s breaths lengthened and deepened as he dozed off and his grip on Carlos’s fingers relaxed. 

Cecil gently drew the sheet and blanket up, making sure they were snug around his shoulders. He gave Carlos a sad smile as he watched his boyfriend untangle their hands and tuck Kevin’s back under the covers. Once they were certain he was asleep, Carlos motioned to his watch and the door, indicating he should take Cecil home to get ready for work.

 

In the hallway, Cecil took a look back.

“This is really not the reaction I thought you’d be having.” Carlos told him quietly.

“That man isn’t the monster that invaded my studio. I don’t know how exactly —but that’s not the thing that killed the Shawns. He’s just a person.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Carlos showered and ate breakfast before going back up to the hospital.  When he got there, Cecil’s show had come on, and he found Kevin sleeping with it playing on the bedside radio.

“Fine.” Carlos said softly and settled into the chair by the bed. 

 

Night Vale General was intent on keeping Kevin for several days for antibiotics, rest, observation and additional tests, which meant Carlos wanted them to find someone he knew. Whether that someone was just to relieve he and Cecil of keeping an eye on him or to make Kevin feel better, he couldn't say. Surely there was at least one familiar person in Desert Bluffs from this man's previous life who cared where he was?  Kevin had not been able to give them a last name nor tell them what had happened to him clearly, and while the hospital didn’t seem terribly fussed by this confusion (who among them in Night Vale hadn’t had this problem once or twice?) they did balk at sharing his medical information with Carlos until Kevin consented and Carlos gave up another bloody thumbprint on a hospital form.

This allowed Carlos to do what he really wanted, which was make a nuisance of himself asking to review the doctors notes about the wound on Kevin’s neck and see if they had any CT scans of his head.

By the time Cecil returned after his show, the scientist had a ream of films and papers and had called everyone on his team at the lab.

“How is he?”

“Foot’s better and he ate a lot at lunch. Other than that he’s slept. Cecil, we really should take a look at these - the team and I.” Carlos flipped open one of the file folders and Cecil saw a profile film of Kevin’s skull — only the dark silhouette was webbed with a fine tracery of hundreds of threads showing silver and white on the celluloid.

“Is that—?” Cecil gasped.

Carlos met his eyes and nodded.

“Go.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

When Carlos returned to pick him up that evening, Cecil met him in the hall. “He’s asleep.”

“Did the staff get a hold of family?”

Cecil shook his head. “The hospital couldn’t locate anyone.  They don’t have a last name and poor Kevin can’t remember one to give them. And he has no ID and the sheriff’s secret police when I called them said there are no people from former Strexcorp in Night Vale. Told me not to ask about any, because they don’t exist and there certainly isn’t any _thing_ that’s been arrested or is being studied by a vague yet menacing government agency and the sheriff. They also said if I kept asking, then any figment of my imagination that didn’t exist would be collected as evidence and put in a ziplock body bag in their warehouse outside of town.” Cecil sighed. “I told them fine, if they didn’t know, they should just say so. I mean, jeez.  You don’t have to get ugly about it. Right?”

“Cecil, I don’t think we need to go through those channels.”

“Well, the hospital didn’t have any luck contacting Desert Bluffs directory assistance either.  I had no idea how many people worked in Strex’s main office — basically the whole town. I get the impression it’s basically Pine Cliff over there now…”

Carlos rolled his eyes. “Yes, but there’s another possible source.”

“Sorry. Am I being dense? I’m a little tired right now… I don’t even think I’m going to league night tonight.”

“Yes you are.” Carlos shook his shoulder roughly. “Cecil, you bowl with the best friend of Strex’s current owners.”

 

.................

 

The Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex got all kinds. League nights, birthday parties, Hell’s Angel’s retirement soirees and the occasional Bat Mitzvah. And all of these events, no matter how high spirited, had at least had enough gravitas to require, well, _pants_.

Teddy Williams would have preferred full clothing, but really pants seemed like the bare (ahem) minimum for sanitation’s sake.  After spraying out the shoes tonight, he figured he’d take an extra can of Brunswick and do all the plastic chairs and booths at lane 7 too — which was currently where the problem was concentrated.  As a child in Sunday school, all the angels in Mr. Williams coloring books wore robes, and he assumed those included undergarments beneath. He had thought about interrupting the little groups meeting — telling Josie her friends were causing a distraction to other customers…  But when one of the creatures was right there in front of you, ten feet tall, luminous, smiling beatifically and wearing a baggy hand-knit jumper, it was really hard to swallow down the lump in your throat and speak.

Luckily, there were only two that came to league night with Josie this evening: the one in the jumper, and one wearing a hand tailored suit jacket and not a thing else. Definitely no pants.

 

.....................

Carlos poured a round of beers into the bowling alley’s plastic cups and watched the young man who accompanied one of angels with some concern. He wore an expensive leather messenger bag with a tablet computer at the ready and positioned himself habitually about 2 feet behind the angel’s right hand.  He was also crying silently and continued to weep even as the angel sent him for their order at the snack bar.

“Just ignore Jake. He does this every time I come down here to take care of business.” The angel took the offered beer from Carlos. “Yeah, I think he’s like having some kind of stuck-dumb-in-the-presence-of-the-divine deal or whatever. Not really sure why that only started after the mayoral debate, I mean, I didn’t even, like, get elected or anything. Anyway…”

Jake returned and his hands shook as he set down a little paper boat of hot wings, his tears dripping into the barbecue sauce. “God man, get it together. That stuff makes them taste weird — too salty. C’mon.” The angel leaned forward and clasped Jake’s shoulder while gripping his hand, and Carlos narrowly saw the discreet pass of an extremely high denomination folded bill. “Go get yourself a gatorade and some kleenex and take the next frame off.”

“Thank you, Mr. Vanston”

“That’s _Erika_.”

 

.....................

 

“Corporate culture of the original acquisition was just too poisonous. We didn’t retain any of the original staff — but it wasn’t really a question of whether we wanted too. The ones that survived just took off.  Saved cleaning house though.” The angel shrugged.

“But you have employee records, right?” Cecil asked.

“We have _everything_. Jake. Get Mr. Palmer here contacts for human resources. And a Burberry account. His aura needs some plaid.”

“Mr. Vans— er, Erika?” Carlos broke in.

The angel lowered his eyes to Carlos and gave a dip of his chin.

Carlos swallowed. “We also need some information about a product of Strex’s” By way of explanation, he began laying out some of the test results, X-ray films as well as a hand drawn diagram he’d sketched from memory of the bug.

The angel’s gold wings hunched and it’s feathers bristled out rigidly. “I don’t recognize this as a Strex product.”

“It was removed from one of the old employees, and bore the company logo.”

Erika snapped their fingers and Jake, dry-eyed at last, leaned over. “Do you recognize this?”

“No sir. But we could research the old equipment manuals.”

 

 

_to be cont..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I needed to put some Marcus in there. Who knew?


	7. Acquisitions and Assets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you thought being a minimum wage Strex employee was bad, you should see how they treat their equipment.  
> Also, does anyone want a homeless Kevin? He probably comes with an enormous hospital bill.

...........................

 

 

While angels, er, winged beings going by the name Erika that don’t exist, could not be counted on in the socially acceptable dress code department, they could be counted on to promptly follow thru on their promises. By the next morning, before the coffee even finished brewing, Cecil received an email from the head of Strexcorp Synergist Inc’s human resources department that contained a data dump of the employment archives organized by department and a couriered delivery for a tasteful camel tartan cashmere scarf.

As the radio host began pouring through page after page of records, Carlos toyed with the scarf and looped it over Cecil’s head.

“Stop it.” Cecil waved him away, but did it with a smile.

“This is really nice.”

“Oh? You can have it if you like.” He turned back to the computer.

Carlos tugged the ends to pull Cecil close. “No, I meant it looked nice on you.” He kissed his nose. “Muted colors. Who would have thought?”

“Really?” Cecil blushed. “Well, that being was _Mr. Vanston_. With that kind of money I imagine good taste just follows.”

Carlos shook his head. “I’ll get the coffee.”

When he returned with two mugs and rice toast a few minutes later, Cecil was so hunched up squinting at the screen, the scarf made him look like a cold and huddling Bob Cratchit. He toggled between pages of the records and made a frustrated noise.

“What is it?”

“I still get no last name, no history. Look here.” Cecil clicked a different spreadsheet tab bringing up Strex’s ruling body for the previous calendar year. “Here’s Lauren Mallard, and here…” He flipped again to a densely packed sheet of administrative workers. “There’s names here — full names — of people I recognize who are from Desert Bluffs from when I covered high school football games and local stuff.”

Carlos leaned over Cecil. “Go back to that other page. Is Daniel on there?”

Cecil clicked but shook his head. “That’s really weird too. Daniel’s not on here at all. That doesn’t seem normal does it? I mean, it doesn’t seem like an organization like Strex would lose a record. Especially not in a key department like radio production.”

The scientist bit his bottom lip looking over the list closely. 

“Say it. You’re thinking again, so just say it.”

“There’s another place he could be recorded.”

“Where?”

“The equipment manuals Jake is hunting for us.”

Cecil looked back at the screen of names, people with full names, full employment records and job descriptions. “I’m going to start matching these to the phone directory and cold calling.” He said quietly.

………………………

Armed with his computer, phone, and professional radio voice, Cecil called a dozen numbers before they left to go to the hospital, but didn’t reach a live person. Many of the voicemail accounts were full or deactivated.

He was hitting a wall with frustration as he made a couple more fruitless calls in the car, when right as they parked, his inbox alert chimed. “Jake just sent the equipment manuals.” Cecil sounded hopeful again.

Reaching the room, they  found Kevin asleep.

“We can wait down there.” Carlos pointed down the hall. “Let him have quiet.”

In the visitor area by the vending machines, the radio host poured through the documents Jake had sent. “This isn’t right. Kevin has no last name. He has no record as an employee.” Cecil frowned, and Carlos wasn’t even sure if he knew he was narrating his thoughts out loud. An orderly pushing a supply cart looked over at them.

“I thought we’d established that.”

“In this record, he’s shown as an equipment acquisition from Desert Bluffs Community Radio. ‘Lot 73 in their annual fundraising auction and rummage sale — ready for upgrades to be a Strexcorp Communication Department asset’ it says. They don’t even list his name. Just ‘one radio host’. Oh my god…” Cecil’s eye’s went wide.

“What?”

Cecil read the notes to him. “‘Lot 37 was also acquired, but executive management, personnel and public relations staff agreed the Lot 73 unit was a better fit for their branding.’ A better fit?” Cecil huffed, raising his voice. “And what _exactly_ was wrong with Lot 37?!”

The scientist grabbed the computer before it fell from Cecil’s lap as he stood up indignantly. “Shh. Shh.” Carlos shifted the computer to his seat and herded Cecil back to his chair. “Nothing is wrong with Lot 37. Lot 37 is perfect - my favorite in fact. Sit. This is Strex and Desert Bluffs, Cecil. They’re the worst, remember? Like Steve? Now, what else did it say?”

“There’s a log of equipment upgrades with serial numbers for parts. I don’t know what this means. Carlos, why wouldn’t they have any basic information on him? His full name?”

Carlos tried to make his voice gentle. “Because they didn’t care. They were making him what they wanted him to be. Cecil, I think there’s even a possibility Kevin isn’t his original name.” That didn’t land well and the scientist, seeing the horrified look on Cecil’s face, wished he hadn’t said it. “Those serial numbers. I’d bet anything one matches a number on the bug.”

Cecil shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. That thing’s in an evidence locker or the bottom of the abandoned mine shaft by now. What would it tell us anyway?”

Carlos’s eyebrows went up. “Before you wipe a computer it’s a good idea to back up the hard drive.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Kevin looked forward up a gentle slope dotted with dark creosote and sage, the plants standing out against the soft chalky pastels of morning and the pink and peach of the gravel and rocks. Ahead of him, the rise broke here and there with tall sandstone outcroppings and scattered mesquite, but otherwise was open land, a clear path to the first shelf of the towering mesa. And on that shelf, dwarfed in the distance, he could see two white raised arms, like stretching star points or a V for victory as if the new wind turbine was waving to him.

He laughed at the sight and began hurrying towards it. Of course it wasn’t waving. That would be silly. But as he got closer, close enough that the third arm pointing down and the base of the massive machine became visible, still only a fly speck still in the distance, was someone who could wave. Someone who Kevin knew was most certainly jumping up and down, pointing at the very first of the structures that would soon be powering their hometown and waving his fool head off, urging Kevin to join him.

He was close enough now to see features: the dark blue of his shirt, dark hair to his shoulders, and recognition flooded him, gave his heart a sudden squeeze.

“Jacob!” The name came to him and despite sprinting now, he called out several more times and laughed when he heard, faint from the distance, a whoop in response.

The trail bent this way and that in quick little switchbacks as it climbed to the mesa shelf, and Kevin’s view was obscured: he was now huffing in a cool blue shadow of the towering sandstone. He felt itching, crawling, and paused on a turn in the path to look down the skin of his arms.  Nothing. It was nerves and the morning chill. He panted to catch his breath and hurried on.

But as he gained the plateau, he felt it again, like a tickle… He tried to ignore it. There was his boyfriend, a mere dozen yards away, under the towering windmill in a first patch of bright sun. Winded, Kevin jogged to close the distance and looked forward to wave.

Then he saw it. Like a drizzle of honey down his arm as his raised hand hit the sunlight. A random track of yellow with the itch, from his wrist down his forearm. He held both arms out in the light and looked. His skin was translucent and mapping his arms were ant trails full of insects. They ran through his veins like tunnels that traced up his arms. Hundreds of them in a countless network crawling busy here and there…

Kevin pulled back from the patch of sunlight to the cool blue shade and they vanished.  But he could still feel them. The itching.  It was down his arms, at his hips, between his toes and up his spine. The sun was rising, bringing him back into the light and the colony only became clearer and clearer. He could now see them moving even deep into his flesh, his muscle and bone also becoming translucent, like thin parchment held to a lamp.

The light was filling him.

He couldn’t see his own outline and now his fingers blurred away, eyes filled with yellow, no, white, white blinding light —

“Jacob!”

… And he tried to look forward, but there was nothing but the white, searing his eyes, up his nose, in his ears, crawling covering his skin and every sense flooded with impossible painful white. He was screaming now, unable to even say the name and his hands grasped forward in empty air.

…………………………

When the screaming made them start, Carlos realized it was almost like a reflex that he grabbed the laptop again when Cecil leaped up.  

Both racing into the room, the scientist gripped Kevin’s shoulders and shook him. “Kevin? You’re having a nightmare.”

Kevin gasped, eyes going wide.

“Just a nightmare. You’re okay.” Cecil told him, and set a hand on his head gently. 

“Carlos?”

“I’m right here.”

“There were insects. And I saw Jacob.”

Cecil watched as Kevin, taking quaking breaths, tilted his head a little towards where Carlos still held his shoulder.

“Insects?” The scientist asked.

Cecil frowned at Carlos, but Kevin nodded, a tense small motion.

“There’s no insects here,” Cecil told him, slipping an arm around Kevin’s shoulders. He looked up at Carlos.

His boyfriend was about to say something to this, but at Cecil’s reproving look, closed his mouth. “No.  Just a nightmare.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Later, Carlos took his hard files and scans back to the lab and showed his colleagues the equipment manuals.  They ended up in a brain storming session about how to gather additional data.

“What are the chances we could get Vanston to just order all these parts?” Amir looked up from the list hopefully.

Carlos shook his head. “Jake lready tried that. Anything related to the DBCR host unit is listed as discontinued according to manufacturing. Couldn’t get a spec sheet or schematics either.”

“So we need a bug to reverse engineer?” Evan asked.

Carlos nodded. “That would be a start. But getting _that_ bug back is what we need.”

………………………….

When he got home, the living room was quiet, and a muffled sound told him Cecil was in their upstairs office, possibly preparing promos for work.  He slipped up the stairs and waited by the cracked door on the landing to listen first, in case this wasn’t a good time to walk in.  But he didn’t hear Cecil rehearsing Red Lobster copy.  He heard Kevin’s voice, high and chipper, then another voice he’d heard before. Lauren Mallard.

Carlos pushed the door open.

Cecil had never listened to the broadcast Kevin and Lauren did while he was trapped in the Strex Company Picnic.  Carlos had.  One of his team members had forwarded an mp3 of it to his phone and he, Doug and Alicia had huddled around listening to it one night. Even with it small and anemic sounding from his phone speaker, and even listening knowing Cecil escaped and was safe, it was unsettling.

Right now, Cecil had reached the point where Kevin, happy to the point of hysteria was describing how hard he resisted the blinding light of the Smiling God, and the radio host was hunched with his knees drawn up in the office chair, hugging them and shivering. Kevin’s high giggles becoming low growls filled the room, and Cecil’s old reel to reel whined as it methodically spun the archive tape.

Carlos put warm arms around Cecil, then reached over and snapped it off.

“You can hear it happen.”

Carlos nodded. “Right there. That light he saw, that was the device sending it’s threads into his occipital lobe.” He felt Cecil shudder and tense. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mad scientist right when I’m trying to reassure you.”

“No. It’s okay. I’ve avoided this. I want to understand what happened.”  Cecil searched his face. “He fought so hard, Carlos. He shouldn’t be alone. I know this is weird, but it could have been me.  It’s like Strex wanted a template of how to take over a small town, to learn from. And maybe it was a coin toss, but Desert Bluffs ended up being first… But we were next Carlos.” Cecil swallowed. “I feel connected in a way — like the flip side of a coin.  Besides, who else knows he’s not Bad Old Kevin? What if people mistreat him or are prejudiced?”

Carlos kept his arms around Cecil and rubbed his back a little. “The hospital hasn’t treated him badly.” He’d noticed that one of Night Vale’s perks of perpetual crisis was the locals often had short memories on bad behavior. “Besides Cecil, almost everyone in town was either owned or employed by Strex at one point. And no one’s proud of that. They sort of know that it taking over is beyond anyone’s control.”

Nodding, Cecil pressed on. “Still, he should have someone who knows who he is. An advocate. A friend to look after him. What if there isn’t anyone when the hospital is ready to release him?”

Carlos twisted his mouth, unsure if he liked where this was heading. "Wait though... We have a first name, Jacob. And Kevin said his boyfriend worked for the Desert Bluffs wind turbine development."

Cecil pursed his lips and pointed to a printout of the Strex employee records on his sound board. The page flipped to the top had a line highlighted listing Engineer Jacob Ortega as obtained as an employee in the acquisition of the turbine farm and terminated in the same day.

"I don't guess a Strex termination comes with a relocation allowance or a severance package?"

"It doesn't even come with a burial plot." Cecil shuddered. "Someone will have to tell him this."

"Not yet. It won't hurt anything to wait a little, until he's in better shape." Carlos squeezed Cecil and rubbed his chin on his shoulder frowning.

“So, like I was saying, if we can't find family before his release..." Cecil persisted. "If he stayed with us, you could even run some tests at the lab about his…” He pointed to his head. “You know.  …And we have a guest room.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Kevin was excited to leave the hospital, to get away from the clinical poking and prodding and the beeping of machines. He liked Cecil helping him get dressed — he’d even brought him some of his own clothes since they were the same size —and he liked holding his offered elbow as a guide down the hospital hall as he worked his crutch with his other arm. He liked the fresh air outside and the warmth on his face…

“And this is your car, Carlos?” He asked as Cecil helped him into the passenger seat. “It’s very quiet.”

“It’s a hybrid.”

“Oh! Jacob had a hybrid! He wanted to design a solar car.” Kevin beamed.

 

At the apartment, Cecil gave him a walk through tour so he could find his way around: cups in the kitchen, the bath and towels, laundry. Everything smelled like people, home-like and familiar of Cecil and Carlos. Their cooking, clothing, toiletries…

“And this will be your room.”

Cecil led him into the guest room which had a day bed, a bureau and a bookcase.

Kevin smiled and touched the top of the chest of drawers. A bit of fabric brushed his hand and he patted it until his fingers touched a frame. A curtained frame? “Is that a window?”

“A mirror.” Cecil laughed. “I’m sort of superstitious about mirrors. I got it from my mother. Carlos of course thinks it’s silly, you know, man of science.”

“Superstitious like ‘don’t break one or seven years bad luck’?”

“Something like that. I’ve gotten rid of most of them, but this one’s attached, so I keep it covered.  Like I said, just a silly family tradition.”

“I’m sure your mom would have liked that. That you remember things she taught you.”

Cecil smiled and took Kevin’s hand. “I like to think so.”

“Jacob didn’t like hocus-pocus much either.” Kevin admitted. “But if it was more spiritual or out of remembrance…”

“He was respectful? Yes. I know the kind.”

Kevin squeezed Cecil’s hand, feeling warm. It was comfortable here and Cecil was easy to talk to.

 

………………………………………

After dinner, Cecil ran Kevin a hot bath and helped him wrap a plastic bag over his cast. Easing him into the soapy water, he pillowed his foot on a towel folded over the side of the tub, then grabbed a washcloth and began scrubbing him down. Kevin startled for a moment, then relaxed. It felt too good for him to protest or feel embarrassed. The soap smelled sweet and warm, like almonds, and to get rid of the oily funk from several days in the hospital and the itch of the remaining dead skin from where he’d sun burned — it was heavenly. And more than that, to have someone touch him gently, someone else kind who would help him the way Carlos did… When Cecil dipped warm water over his head and began massaging in shampoo, it was all Kevin could do not to drop his head into Cecil’s hands in surrender. It felt so good and he felt safe here.

…………………………………

When Carlos stalked by to see if the bathroom was free yet, he heard laughing from behind the cracked door.  He tapped on it before pushing it open.

Kevin was in a thick terry robe sitting on the closed commode while Cecil had him lathered up and was tilting his head back to shave him.  Also, only the night light and a counter top lamp were on, and Cecil was sporting a thick shaving cream mustache in the weird half light.

“Carlos!” Kevin smiled.

“Ah, hold still. I don’t care if this is a safety razor.” Cecil laughed. “You may be able to see, but I hardly can like this.”

“Should I shave you first?” Kevin asked earnestly.

“And ruin this? It took weeks to grow!” Cecil threw his hands up to protect his mustache, smearing it into his ears.

“What on earth are you doing?” Carlos’s hand went for the light switch, and Cecil leaned so far over to catch his wrist and stop him he lost his seat on the upturned trash can and ended up kneeling on the floor.

“Don’t. Don’t. We found a good light level.  And what does it look like we’re doing? You’ve never shaved?” Cecil huffed and sat back before Kevin. “We’re going to clean up all this scruffy…”

“You said he can see?” Carlos looked around the dim room, then down at Kevin, brow furrowed.

“I can see right now.” Kevin told him.

And Carlos saw the black pits blink and meet his gaze.

“You’ve got to get the light level just right, and then apparently it’s like daylight to him.” Cecil looked up at Carlos’s serious and worried expression. “This is good news.” He laughed and nudged him trying to break him out of his concerned thoughts. “Something to work with. Can we finish up? Or did you need in here?”

Carlos seemed to relax and gave Kevin a smile. “I guess we didn’t experiment enough with the lanterns, huh?”

Beaming, Kevin shook his head.

“Would it be okay if we tried some controlled tests at the lab?”

Kevin nodded still smiling.

……………………..

Later, Carlos heard Cecil’s voice, quiet and low, and slipped to the guest room door. Unnoticed, he watched Cecil tuck Kevin into bed. 

“Here you go. You like the heavier blanket, right? I do too — the weight is nice and reassuring. Goodnight now…”

In the hall, Cecil carefully closed the door all but a crack, turned, and bounced off Carlos’s chest.  Looking up, he was met with a grin. “I knew I should have gotten you that secret terrier puppy.”

“Hush you.” 

“I suppose he’s housebroken at least.” Carlos smirked.

“Joke all you want.  There’s a reason he lists towards you every time something triggers him.” Cecil crossed his arms.

Carlos sniffed and cut his eyes at Cecil. “And what would that be?”

“You were doing the same things for him in the desert. And now—“

“Look, he was suffering from shock and exposure. If someone hadn’t been able to reassure him and provide basic care, the shock would have gotten him. Mammals are  — oh, stop looking at me like that.”

“And now you’re going to puff up and Science all over it…” Cecil snickered.

“Honestly Cecil. I did the bare minimum of what was required as a human, and most of the time I was worrying about you. Right now, I’m a little ashamed about it. I’d hate for him to know what I was thinking.”

“Nothing I wasn’t thinking as well.” Cecil shook his head. “There’s another reason he gravitates towards you.” He added smiling again. “You remind him of Jacob, his boyfriend.”

Carlos blushed. “That’s sad.”

“Sweet things often are.” Cecil leaned in and kissed him.

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“Why should it? I know just how he feels.”

 

_to be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh-oh, we're past Christmas, Boxing day and New Years now...  
> Maybe I'll finish this by Valentine's Day?  
> If anyone's bored, I can pull over and let you out. Anyone?


	8. Two Different Labs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil might be better at recovering memories than organized clinical science. It's a shame he can't keep his own head straight at key moments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just reread this and I'm completely appalled at Santa's numerous broken, run on and awkward sentences. But I'm really pooped this week, so I'm just going to beg for forgiveness instead of editing.
> 
> Also, I'm going to try to update on Mondays until this animal is done.  
> Is that okay?  
> So far, Monday has meant about 2 am on Tuesday.
> 
> Also,  
> [Consider this a chapter warning. ](http://hockpock.tumblr.com/post/108656088581/qualiachameleon-strex-corp%0A)

 

..................

Carlos rolled over and blinked. It was midmorning and Cecil was still out of it. On their regular schedules, with the radio host’s work not starting until well into the afternoon, Carlos was used to having a few hours in the morning to himself. He usually went for a jog and made breakfast and often was halfway through his work emails before Cecil would emerge, stretching and languid like a sleepy house cat.

The scientist decided to forgo the jog and padded towards the kitchen. Passing the guest room, he peered in and did a brief double take: Kevin was the mirror image of Cecil, sleeping on his side, the blanket halfway hooded over the back of his head.

Coincidences are weird and the mind looks for patterns, he told himself and continued to the coffee maker.

 

“You’re going to work already?” Cecil asked very quietly.

“Cecil. The guest room is across the apartment. You don’t have to whisper.” Carlos flipped an egg onto a plate and set it in front of his boyfriend at the breakfast table. “And yeah, I’m going in for a little while. I want to get things set up so tomorrow if he’s ready I could bring him in for a look.”

 ..................

“Things come back in bits and pieces. Sometimes I’m holding something, like the toothbrush, and I get a flash of my old bathroom sink. Like I can see it, but things don’t always link together.”

“I’m sure it will come.  How is that? The rice toast, I mean.”

Kevin had woken up after noon and so Cecil jokingly told him he had to make him brunch food: French toast with some raspberries. He liked to cook, but it was often awkward with just himself or he and Carlos’s staggered schedules. “Really good.” Kevin sighed around a mouthful. “I love raspberries…”

Cecil smiled watching as the other man seemed almost lost in tasting the fruit. “Can you tell me, how did you and Jacob meet?” He studied Kevin over his cup as he sipped his coffee, hoping this was a happy subject. You had to start somewhere, right?

Kevin beamed. “It was ridiculous.” He put his face in his hands. “I went to the big project proposal announcement for the turbine farm, you know, to cover it for work. And Jacob was explaining the project, and he saw me and he wouldn’t stop staring right at me. I’m in this crowd of people and it’s like he’s only telling me the time line for the environmental study and the build and how much energy… I was mortified. When it was over and he introduced himself, I told him I only covered the event for professional reasons.” Kevin laughed.

Cecil grinned. “Obviously he wasn’t brushed off so easily though.”

“No. He asked me out and I said ‘no’, so the next week during the broadcast, my producer hands me a press release to read — an update about the farm — and it included news that the head engineer had experienced love at first sight that he ‘could only hope his longing would be satiated by hearing the voice of his affection read these words aloud in that sweet voice like the pipe of songbirds’” Kevin hid his face. “It was a press release. I had to read that on air.”

Nodding, Cecil laughed. “So you had it out with him?”

“No! I didn’t know what to do. Would saying something to him encourage it? And even though I was embarrassed, I mean, he was really cute.” He sighed. “I railed and complained and put on a show deriding it for weeks— but I think I was just stalling for time because I was scared and I liked him too. The whole thing just ensured that my producer waited until I was boxed in on-air so he could hand me the next press release with more wind mill news from Jacob. It was an apology for being unprofessional and indelicate, and then he describes all the parts of one of the turbines and compares them to me. ‘The external steel is white, almost as white as Kevin’s lovely teeth, in weather resistant enamel’… …That sort of thing.” Kevin paused, “Then it gets kind of jumbled…”

"The memory?"

"Uh huh. It's like I'm fishing them out of fog. I just get pieces again."

“No, listen. When you have a prompt — like just now you really focused tasting the raspberries — you remember more.  See? You’ve just remembered a whole chunk of story, all linked together.” Cecil’s eyes narrowed. “We need more prompts.”

 

....................

 

When Carlos got home, the foyer was dark and he smelled… Actually, he wasn’t sure what he smelled.

“Cecil?” He called over the whirr of, was that the kitchen exhaust fan? And what was that music? T-Rex?

“In here!” His boyfriend called from the living room.

The main room of the apartment was dark with the windows covered with tacked up sheets and blankets. Strings of Christmas lights ran along the top of the bookcases and tables and a couple small lamps burned in the corners shaded with pillow cases over them.

Kevin and Cecil were side by side on the couch. In front of them, the coffee table was strewn with containers of all sorts of things from the bathroom and kitchen: aftershave, various cleaning products, toiletries, conditioner, spices, the vanilla extract, tea containers, a can of coffee… And yes, that was the kitchen exhaust fan running, as well as the oscillating fan drug out from the office. Also, the stereo was on with Cecil’s laptop plugged into the receiver and glam rock blaring.

“Carlos!” Kevin beamed.

“Hey Kevin. Um, Cecil? What the he— What are you doing?” He unplugged the laptop.

“Science.”

Kevin grinned and hid his face against the radio host’s shoulder.

Carlos rolled his eyes. “A little more specific? Look at all this…”

“Smell triggers memory.” Cecil told him. “And music does too. So we’ve been trying some things out.”

“In the dark?”

“Ambience?” Cecil offered. “Oh, come on. It’s a practical concern that Kevin should be able to see. You don’t want him to trip—“

“No, no. Of course not.” Leave it to Cecil to be more worried about his test subject than whether or not he himself could see or record his findings. “So, you can see in here Kevin?”

“Mostly.” Kevin nodded. “It’s a little fuzzy around the edges.”

“And the smells? Did they trigger anything?”

He nodded more. “Flashes.”

“Ug, but then I spilled the vanilla, and well… I figured we could start over when it dissipated.” Cecil explained.

“So Cecil opened Pandora.”

“Glam rock got the biggest response. And then the Beastie Boys… Weird, right? Anyway, I’ll clean all this up.”

Carlos shook his head. “No. I will. You need to change for work.”

Holding it under a Christmas light, Cecil squinted at his watch. “Oh!” He jumped up, pecked Kevin’s cheek, then Carlos’s, and hurried to the bedroom.

Carlos looked down at Kevin, whose eyes had gone huge and who had placed a hand over the kissed spot on his cheek. The scientist’s mouth crooked into a half smile, which Kevin saw and he immediately began stammering.

“Help me take this to the kitchen?” Carlos smirked.

“O-okay.”

 

Apparently the kitchen wasn’t as easily thrown into twilight.  Or maybe Cecil had run out of Christmas strands. Either way, it had the overhead lights on and was too bright for Kevin to see, so he ferried items to the counter while Carlos sorted them back into the cabinets. Carlos noticed his face was still a vivid red.

“I was thinking we could order from Rico’s and maybe stream a movie? Does pizza sound okay?”

“It sounds good. Will we listen to Cecil’s program?”

“Sure. I always do.” Carlos corralled the tea tins from Kevin’s hands and shelved them. “He’s fun, huh?” He needled, enjoying how it made the other man drop his gaze and smile helplessly.

“He is.” Kevin managed.

“So, he told you I was setting up the lab? You feel up to coming in with me tomorrow?”

“Of course. Thank you.” Kevin nodded. “Carlos? Did the hospital call?”

“Ah, no.” It took him a moment. “Did they call here?”

“No. I thought since you’re on my paperwork and I don’t have a phone, if they found someone…”

“Right. No. I’m sorry. Nothing yet.”

 

After they ate and Carlos quizzed Kevin on how well he could perceive the lit image on the TV, (not well, but better after turning it several levels darker) they settled down in front of Velvet Goldmine. Realizing that once up and distracted, neither Kevin nor Cecil had thought about it, Carlos had Kevin recline on the sofa and elevate his ankle.

“It hasn’t bothered me really.”

“That’s great. But you should still do this periodically while it heals. How’s that?” He finished arranging the cushions.

“Good.” Kevin sighed.

 

About ten minutes into the film, Carlos glanced over and saw that Kevin was asleep. The sight brought home to him that despite being alert and up and around, he was still recovering and just hanging out with Cecil had worn him out. Carlos turned the volume down and covered him with a throw. When Cecil’s show started, he shut off the movie and turned up the radio a little, but didn’t move to wake him. However, soon Kevin blinked and stirred and sat up on his own, just in time to hear:

“Listeners, Carlos and I would like to ask if anyone, friends or family, or, friends or family of friends or family — you get the idea— of Kevin, formerly of Desert Bluffs are looking for him, well, _he’s looking for you too_. Please, contact me here at the station. And now a look at traffic…”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

 

“I’ll show you around the lab and then we’ll start with something really basic, like light level readings.” As he parked, Carlos glanced across the car and saw that Kevin had his eyes shut against the daylight. “And we’ll find you some sunglasses or something. Sound good?”

Kevin nodded smiling. “Sounds good.”

Shaving had revealed his facial scars fully, making him more closely resemble Carlos’s memory of Strexcorp Kevin, and seeing him in Cecil’s clothes only added to this disconcerting image. Carlos brushed the thought aside. Nothing in Kevin’s behavior even remotely mirrored his old self.  His smiles were genuine, he lit up at the smallest attention paid to him, and, Carlos saw, any time he or Cecil wasn’t within reach or had been quiet long enough to have wandered from earshot, Kevin’s eyes widened uselessly and he would pan his head from side to side for sound, frightened. Like a swimmer letting go of a rock foothold when they couldn’t touch bottom, Kevin seemed to struggle for calm as he tread water until a familiar hand or voice returned to him.

Carlos wasn’t one for idle chatter, but he took a page out of Cecil’s book and tried simply narrating where they were and what they would be doing. “This is the lab. Hang on and I’ll help you out on that side of the car.”

 

Introducing Kevin to Amir, Rachelle and Evan on his team, it also became apparent that Carlos, like Cecil, had grown used to Kevin’s scars. People of Night Vale did that — got used to scars  Humans and animals had them. Big deal. Either by birth or by radioactive fog or surviving Valentine’s Day, but Night Vale natives didn’t bat an eyelash at them or any of the other less-than-routine-issue physical forms such as missing limbs and what have you.

Carlos’s team however were at their core still outsiders. He watched as each shook Kevin’s hand, their eyes widening or scrunching as they surveyed the carved smile lines extending to his ears and the gouged dimples just above, before settling uncertainly on the empty black pools.

“So.  I emailed Amir ahead about what Cecil did with the light levels,” Carlos began, wanting to shift attention back to the work at hand.

“Right.” Amir nodded. “We got some dimmer switches and I pulled the light meter from the photo kit and blacked out the windows in the break room.”

“Perfect.”

 

“Can you tilt your head up now? That’s good.” It had taken Evan only about five minutes to zero in on the exact light level Cecil had stumbled across with his vanity lamp and Glow Cloud nightlight. “Any change?”

“Nope.” Kevin blinked at him smiling and Carlos noted that after an awkward moment, Evan returned it, apparently a little unnerved that those pupil-less holes could now see him.

“Okay. We’re going to do a general vision exam for a base line and then try some focus tests.”

Stepping into the hall with Rachelle, Carlos watched through the hall window as Evan tacked up some eye chart print outs.

“It doesn’t really make sense. From what you described, I expected to see a fixed dilation in the pupil and no ability to focus. Like a camera aperture stuck open.” Rachelle also watched the testing continue as she spoke.

“But?”

“We’re having to quantify what we’re looking at from square one. Scoping his eyes is literally like looking in a snow globe full of ink. There’s no recognizable structures to control the mechanics of how an eye manages light and we’re going on faith that the cornea and hard lens are intact since he appears to be able to focus. But the usual modalities for testing ocular motility and reactivity are pointless.”

Carlos grimaced, glancing back at the room where Kevin was reading the eye chart.

“Obviously we can figure out a range that permits vision, and we could do a slit lamp test that might give us a clearer picture of what’s left of the structures—“

Behind the glass, Kevin pitched forward, then arched his back, crying out. Carlos cut past Rachelle back into  the room.

“Kevin? Are you okay?”

He was blinking furiously and shaking, his spine still bent back, then he crumpled forward. Carlos caught him and sat him back, relieved to feel his hands grip his forearms weakly.

“Kevin? What happened?”

“I’m okay,” he breathed. “I don’t know what that was.”

“Looked like a seizure.” Evan checked the light meter.

“Can you describe it? Did it hurt?” Carlos put a hand on his shoulder and held his wrist checking his pulse.

“I saw a flash of light and then it was like rigor mortis. I couldn’t move… I don’t know. I’m sorry. Did I mess up the test?”

Carlos laughed. “No. I was worried the test was messing with you.”

 

 

“I don’t know what else we can do here without the type of equipment the hospital has.” Evan said flatly. “What do you do when there’s shrapnel somewhere it’s not safe to remove? You leave it. The MRI scans are about as good as it gets on looking at the remains of the wiring of the device in his head.”

The brainstorm meeting on data gathering in the wake of the bug wasn’t going as Carlos had hoped.

Amir tapped one of the MRI sheets blown up showing the tracery in Kevin’s head. “If I could get a sample of one of these threads—“

“No.”

“I wasn’t offering to yank one out. I was just saying hypothetically if we did somehow.  That would at least be a start.”

“We can do some reflex tests, things for cognitive function, but nothing more invasive than that. We need the bug —something external to be examined…” Evan offered.

Carlos’s eyes drifted over the films spread on the table as he answered his own next question. “And that episode we saw could have been triggered by anything. Internal or external because he’s got a head full of foreign matter…”

“Pick a neuron, any neuron.” Amir shrugged. “And judging by these scans, with as far-reaching and prolific as they are— I mean, it’s like a spiderweb — these are super fine. We’re not talking wires. We’re talking carbon fibre. Microscopic.”

“No.” Carlos shook his head. “I held the thing. The stuff that came out was like wire hair. You could see it.”

“Look.” Amir straightened a film centering on the base of Kevin’s skull. “This is where you removed the device, and your notes say the threads were 3-4 inches retractable. There’s this dead area in a halo around the device’s location. So here’s my theory: those weren’t hairs or legs. They were injectors. It was manufacturing and installing it the longer it was in there. Colonizing.”

Rachelle blanched. “Remind me not to be a character in your sci-fi novel.”

 

Cecil hadn’t wanted them to spend a long day at the lab. He was worried about overwhelming Kevin. But suddenly it was Carlos who felt very tired. He didn’t normally react this way when a question or problem presented itself. Normally it was a call to action, a mystery to be solved. But he didn’t have the key piece he needed to observe and test. The toy he could dismantle to see how it worked. Kevin wasn’t an equation, a lab animal or a robot he could pick apart. He was a live person.  One who he and Cecil still needed to tell that the only soul he remembered and cared for in his previous life was gone.

“Carlos?”

He looked up to see Kevin leaning on his crutch over his desk.

“Hey. Did you and Evan get done with the reflex test?”

Kevin nodded. “And we did color film, looked at a spectrum and infrared tests too.”

“Great. So you probably know what color sunglasses you want then.”

“No,” Kevin laughed.  “He said it was ‘inconclusive of anything’. Um, are you okay?”

Carlos straightened. “I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

 

That evening Carlos made them sandwiches for dinner while they listened to the NVCR broadcast. Again, before traffic, Cecil made a plea asking that anyone with information about Kevin “or Jacob Ortega of Desert Bluffs, please contact this station.”

“I hope Station Management doesn’t care about his use of air time, but I guess he would have been reprimanded by now.” Carlos glanced at Kevin, who he saw had stopped eating. “Kevin?”

“Ortega…”

Oh.

Carlos was tired and not thinking quickly or clearly.

“I didn’t remember that. How did Cecil learn his last name?” Kevin asked slowly, then brightened. “Maybe the hospital found someone? They could have called the station directly.”

“Kevin.” Carlos swallowed and pushed back from the table. “I need to tell you something.”

 

.....................................

 

When Cecil got home that night, Carlos was laying on the couch holding Kevin, who was curled against his chest in the fetal position. The scientist had the throw and his arms wrapped around him, but despite this, every few breaths a shudder or hoarse sob shook him.

“What happened?” Cecil let his bag drop and hurried to them.

Carlos gave him a dark meaningful look.

Cecil closed his mouth and his face fell. “Oh. Oh… Damn it Cecil.” He smacked his forehead.

“Shh.” Carlos hissed. “It’s done.”

“I am so sorry Kevin. We wanted to break it gently. Not to overwhelm you with it. I’m so sorry.” He put a hand out to touch Kevin’s shoulder tentatively, and when there was no reaction, began to rub gently.

Carlos squeezed and struggled to sit up, still holding him. “I told him about the records. The _employment_ records.” 

The radio host’s eyes widened with understanding and he nodded quickly sitting beside Carlos and continuing to rub Kevin’s back. “How long has he been like this?” He asked quietly.

“Since you said the last name.”

Cecil nodded, frowning, and rose. “Let’s get him up. Move him to the bedroom.”

 

Carlos carried him. Kevin was hardly responsive; just a knot of grief, eyes closed, streaming tears and clutching at Carlos’s neck weakly. At the bed, Cecil untangled him partway and gently washed his face. He changed him into pajamas and coaxed him into blowing his nose and sipping water all while keeping an arm around him —sometimes his, sometimes Carlos’s.

“Get his pain pills?” Cecil asked.

When the scientist tried to move away, Kevin whimpered in protest. Cecil hugged him in. “It’s alright. He’ll be right back.”

Returning, Carlos watched Cecil shake two of the capsules into his hand. “He hasn’t complained about his foot.”

“These aren’t for his foot.” Cecil answered softly. “Here sweetheart. That’s it.” He murmured encouragement as Kevin swallowed them. Arm still firm around him, he tugged  the covers down on the bed. “Let’s lay down for a bit.”

Kevin leaned into his arm, shuddering, and buried his face against Cecil’s shoulder.

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. Carlos is here too.” He told him softly.

True to his word, Cecil didn’t leave. He lay on his side, arms sheltering him and let Kevin burrow against his chest until exhaustion took him.

 

_to be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh good lord.  
> I'm feeling sorry for Kevin.
> 
>  
> 
> How in holy hell did this happen?


	9. The Thing With Feathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If anyone looks at that title and thinks Marcus drops in on this chapter, let me just set you straight right here. He doesn't. (Sorry.) Also, he's really self conscious about the feathers since he had to have all his suit jackets sliced open to accommodate them, so I try not to mention them around him. 
> 
> Anyway, Cecil and Carlos try to help Kevin through his grief. Or maybe Carlos tries to help Cecil through Kevin's grief. I get confused sometimes...
> 
> No Marcus. 
> 
> Maybe later.

....................

 

When Carlos was young, his grandfather had a pair of little birds. They were some sort of small parrot, green and blue, and they were a bonded pair, grooming each other, preening, burbling and rattling their toys. If one was taken out of the cage, they both had to be taken out; there was no dealing with the screeching protest otherwise. Then one of the birds caught a draft and died, and after watching its mate for a day, his grandfather gathered it in his hand and began carrying it around with him.

“It’s pining.” He told Carlos and his sisters.  They had watched curiously as he pressed it against his chest over his heartbeat. It looked tiny with just its face poking out from under his huge hand and it lay still with its white eyelids closed, drawn up from the bottom. “You have to hold them for a while when one dies, or the other will die too.”

“Because it’s sick?”

“Because it thinks it’s alone.”

He and his sisters were kids, so they were curious, and they also thought it was funny to see their stout and weathered grandpa hold a little bird to his cheek, or comb and scratch under it’s feathers with his thick ridged fingernail and carry it with him in his breast pocket while he gardened. Funny or not though, it worked. Eventually the bird began to make the little parrot noises that to Carlos sounded like it was talking to itself and to groom and nibble and explore things with its beak, and came back to life.

 

This memory was one of the proofs Carlos’s scientific brain would latch onto, one of the few things he could just accept on faith and not try to wrestle with all the soft messy aspects of grief he either found hard to understand or didn’t want to punish himself by plumbing too deeply into what-if parallels among his feelings for Cecil.

In the days that followed, he could do the things that Kevin needed: hold him when he broke down, talk to him gently, see that he ate, changed clothes, and rose and walked around some to get his blood flowing, all without policing him for any sign of instant improvement.  It would come.

Cecil, on the other hand, while trading off with Carlos and doing the same things, was beginning to look ragged.

Each night when he got home after his broadcast he lay down beside Kevin and held him and talked to him softly, trying to lull him to sleep, which didn’t always come.

Carlos saw small signs of progress. Kevin getting out of bed on his own, following them around, or eating a little more, or when Cecil helped him to bed, rubbing his cheek against the radio host’s hand. But Cecil was wearing himself out in either sympathy grief or possibly trying to will his pain away.

Putting the dishes away, Carlos watched his partner drag back into the living room after seeing Kevin to bed.

“Please Carlos, we have to do something. You have to do something.”

“Like what?” Carlos gave an exasperated laugh.

“I don’t know. With your science or something. I did this. This is my fault — I messed everything up because I can’t keep my stupid mouth shut. If I try to fix it, who knows how much worse I’ll make it?”

Carlos took his shoulders and gave Cecil a brisk shake and a squeeze. “Baloney. Cecil, listen. You having him laughing a making a mess probably did more for him than me taking him to the lab. And you know we were going to have to tell him about Jacob eventually. You know that.” He held him out at arm’s length to get a look at his face. “Not your fault. Grief takes it’s own time.”

Cecil heaved a sigh. “I just…” He stammered.

Before he could come up with more, Carlos pulled him into a bear hug. “Nope. No ‘just’.” He told him gently. “You’ve been working full time and coming home to this. You’re doing plenty. You get to have a break too.”

Cecil melted against him and dropped his head gratefully on Carlos’s shoulder. The scientist rubbed his back, then slid his arm down and gathered him up. Cecil made a small noise of surprise and nuzzled Carlos’s neck as he was carried to the sofa where Carlos sat, holding him in his lap. Bending his head down, Carlos kissed what was exposed of Cecil’s face, small gently placed touches here and there on Cecil’s cheek, jaw, ear… It tickled. Cecil sighed and curled in, a smile crooking the corner of his mouth.

“You like that?” Carlos grinned.

He nodded into his neck and Carlos squeezed him snugly in the cradle of his arms. “This is nice.” His voice was low, conspiratorial. “I think you need that again,” and he continued the kisses, one of them removing a stray tear, and Cecil laughed softly.

“Shh. Be quiet. I’m comforting you.” Carlos told him.

“Oh, sorry.” Cecil snickered and went limp into the warm crook of his boyfriend’s shoulder. Carlos’s hand slid up his side and stroked down his crown, neck and back, gentle but firm. It felt so… so… Strong? Solid? Cecil didn’t know, he just gave up and melted further against him. Under Carlos’s touch his spine might as well have been a buttered noodle.

“In the desert, if I was tired or not feeling good, Doug would scoop me up in his hand. Sometimes whether I wanted him to or not.” Carlos laughed quietly.

“Like the parakeet?”

“Ha. Yeah, well… Yeah. It was nice.”

“You miss him?”

“I do. But I missed this more.” He stroked Cecil’s hair and kissed his temple. 

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

In the next few days, Kevin began asking questions — not angrily or demanding. Just softly asking how much Carlos and Cecil could tell him about his background, if there were other things they were keeping from him.

“You’ve been through so much.” Cecil protested when Kevin cornered him on the couch.

“Carlos?” Kevin turned to the scientist. “Please?”

“Cecil actually knows more than I do.” Carlos admitted. “Or at least, was direct witness to more.”

“Do you know how I broke my ankle?”

Carlos shook his head. “It was like that when I found you. You’d been on your own in the desert for some time, so it’s hard to guess.”

“What about the place on the back of my neck?”

Cecil bit his lip, but didn’t say any thing. The scientist took a deep breath. “When we were taking care of you at the camp, I moved you —lifted your head— and I felt something. I thought it was some metal or some trash from the desert that got lodged when you fell… But it wasn’t.”

There was no going back at this point, so Carlos explained about Strex entering Night Vale, about finding and losing the bug and what the hospital scans showed about the bug’s roots still inside Kevin.

“You can’t remember this chunk of time, because as far as we can tell, you weren’t you.”

“Who was I?”

Cecil flinched. “You could have been me. What Strex did to you, it could have been me, or anyone…”

“ _But what did I do_?”

“Whatever Strex told you to do. Spread propaganda on the radio. Encourage or terrify, or both, other Strex workers. Please don’t make me describe details. You did violent things. I was afraid of that man, and that’s not who you are.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone…” Kevin said softly almost to himself. He turned on his crutch and felt his way around the coffee table, moving back towards his room.

Cecil got up to follow, but Kevin shook his head. “Please. Don’t.”

 

The next morning, Kevin didn’t get up.  Around noon, Cecil knocked lightly on the cracked door.

No response.

Entering, he found Kevin huddled under the blankets, half open empty black eyes streaming a puddle into his pillow.

“Kevin? Can I sit with you?”

The other man closed his eyes at Cecil’s touch, tentatively stroking his hair, then he flinched and sat up, scrubbing at his face and turning away.

“Why? I’m useless. Useless. I can’t see, I can’t walk, I can’t stop crying. Everyone I know — I knew — they’re all gone… If I hadn’t been able to help him find the door I wouldn’t have been of any use to Carlos.  He should have left me there anyway. I have no place here.”

“Oh, no. _No._ ” Cecil threw his arms around Kevin and crushed him to his chest. “That is the most ridiculous, most presumptuous thing I’ve ever heard.” He scolded. “The very idea that something has to justify its existence.” He scoffed. “Since when has matter been at the whim of abstract concepts like utilitarian purpose?” 

He held Kevin tight, feeling him arch his back defensively, then relax and give up. He put a hand to the back of his head and squeezed him in.

“Carlos is very analytical,” He began softly. “He gets wrapped up in his work and his interests and sometimes he can forget about softer things, and then emotions can sneak up and scare him.  I’m so glad you were there to keep him company, to talk to him and remind him of home. And I’m glad you’re here now.”

Holding him at arm’s length, Cecil ducked his head to peer into Kevin’s lowered face. “Can you see me?”

The black pits looked up and past Cecil. “Sort of.”

“Carlos made something for you and I don’t want to ruin the surprise.  Will you come out to see it?”

Kevin nodded and wiped his face on his pajama sleeve.

 

The something was a pair of glasses.

“They’re photochromic lenses, so they’ll darken in UV light, in sunlight.” Carlos explained slipping them over Kevin’s nose. He had attached black-out fabric around the edges fitting to the face, which made them look less like aviator shades and more like the lab’s safety goggles, or something for welding. “They take a little while to darken and lighten again, and they won’t change indoors under artificial light, but I thought if they could help you see outside, that’s be a start. How do they feel?”

“Good.”

“Are they heavy? The fabric adds a bit.”

“I think they’re alright.” Kevin tilted his head forward and they stayed in place. “So far so good.” He smiled a little. “Do I look cool?” He asked Cecil.

“ _Very_ cool.” Cecil assured him.

“Now that that’s established, can we try the important test? Outside?” Carlos stood and offered Kevin his crutch.

 

Kevin rammed his eyes shut as the door opened, and even so he could see the brightness through his eyelids.  Waiting until it subsided, he opened one eye cautiously and then the other. Before him, everything was bathed in an almost monotone cool sepia, but the world had clear form. There was the parking lot to the apartment with a row of cars, and there was a mailbox, and sidewalk and beyond a street with passing cars and a stucco house with century plants and a cactus garden.

“They work.” He said excitedly and limped forward. “Is that your car? The Prius?” Kevin pointed.

“Yep.”

Kevin grinned and turned around, “It’s all brown, but I can see everything.” He looked up and all around curiously, then searched the sky for the sun, reaching up to block it with his hand safely as he spotted it. 

The three of them wandered around the common areas of the apartment complex, from the pool to the barbecue grills, letting Kevin experiment with them under various shadows and with glare thrown up from the water or the tin roof of the pool shed. The even sepia vision held steady, and Kevin looked more confident exploring and testing them out. 

When they finally sat at one of the picnic tables by the pool, Cecil quietly told Kevin that he and Carlos had been thinking that when he was ready, maybe he would want to go to the turbine site for a visit. 

“You don’t have to. We thought you might want to since it was his place. It’s up to you.” Cecil rubbed shoulders with Kevin and slid an arm around him. 

Kevin leaned in and swallowed. “I would. Yes.” He nodded, then wiped his face quickly and stood. “These are wonderful Carlos.”

The scientist smiled and gripped his shoulder giving it a squeeze. “I’m glad. And we can try to fine tune them as you use them. Thicker lenses, the fit of the legs…”

“And I can start showing you around the neighborhood. You need to know your way around for when you get that cast off.”

Kevin smiled. “Thank you.”

“Oh, no. Don’t thank me. I have an ulterior motive for getting you moving.” Cecil sidled up to Kevin and linked arms with him. “The station has pledge week coming up, and you, I understand, are also a radio professional.”

 

When they got back to the apartment, Carlos switched over the lights to Cecil’s dimmer Christmas strands as Kevin removed the new glasses.

“Word from Station Management is that we should not be expecting our usual annual donation, so the pledge drive is really important this— oof!” Cecil slipped, caught himself, and picked up a large black envelope that he’d stepped on. 

“What is that?’ Carlos frowned, apprehensive.

“Not sure. Must have been slid under the door.” Cecil ripped it open.

“Be careful. It could be a summons. Or a code violation.”

“Dear Carlos, you should know by now that the Sheriff switched to paperless summons for re-education and municipal notices. Much more eco-friendly.” Cecil sighed, pulling out a black linen textured card with gold embossed lettering. “Oh…” Cecil’s eyes ran over the expensive stationary. “Oh!”

Kevin tugged his elbow to drag him from the dark entryway into the half light so he could see it.

“What’s Tourniquet?”

“It is a very _very_ nice restaurant.” Cecil bounced on the balls of his feet and pecked both their cheeks. “Earl’s invited us to dinner as a welcome back gift!”

 

_and ever yet, to be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man. I mean, it's one thing for Earl to watch Cecil on a date with Carlos, but him showing up at Tourniquet with a guy on either arm? I'm not sure it 100% serves the primary story arc, but I had fun writing some Night Vale fine dining menu items, so the guys are going to go have a fancy dinner. They deserve a night out, right?


	10. Tourniquet, Pt 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, you read that right. Part 1.  
> The guys took forever getting ready, so dinner's running late.

......................................

 

“What night do we want?” Carlos called from the dim living room. He was on his cell making their reservation with Tourniquet.

Cecil craned his head out of the kitchen, eyes alight. “Friday or Saturday. On a DATE night!” Behind him, Kevin grinned.

Carlos sighed and repeated the request to the maître d’. 

“Of course. I see that we could even accommodate you as early as this evening if you like.”

“Could you let me check on that?”

“Certainly.”

Carlos hadn’t gone into the lab for over a week since the Jacob bomb got dropped.  While taking time off wasn’t an option for Cecil, Carlos could still beg off that he was easing back into his routine and so he chose to stay home with Kevin. But he wanted to go in for a least a couple hours today to tinker with the second version of the glasses. It was Friday, and Cecil had done a rare morning show. (Something to do with pest control changing the puppy bait or recharging the bloodstones under the break room floor in the afternoon. Carlos couldn’t keep track.) So there was no special reason they couldn’t go this evening.

“Cecil? There’s an opening tonight.”

“WHAT? They NEVER have an opening!”

“I’m sure there was just a last minute cancelation. So, tonight or later this week?”

He could hear the murmur of Cecil consulting Kevin.

“Tonight!”

“Did you catch that?” He asked into the phone.

“Loud and clear. We begin serving cocktails at 7 pm.”

“Wonderful.”

“And if sir would give me the reservation passphrase on the invitation?”

Carlos blinked, flipping over the expensive linen card, “Oh, ah…”

“Hold it to a light, sir.”

He lifted the black paper to the overhead Christmas strand just as Cecil came in munching breakfast cereal, Kevin at his elbow. Gold words drifted into focus. “Here we go. ‘Order of the Arrow’.” 

“Very good, sir. We look forward to your visit this evening.” And the card turned to black smoke that smelled of cinnamon.

Carlos backed up, startled, and examined his hand.

Both Cecil and Kevin cocked their heads at this and smiled. “Neat.” 

 

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

At the lab, Carlos entered the break room surprised to see the whole team gathered around the snack table. He unpacked his satchel at his locker, one eye on the group.

“Who had cosmetic appearance? We’re calling it 50/50 on the eyes versus mouth and cheeks.”

Three on the team raised their hands and Evan consulted his note pad before doling out a few twenties to each.

“So wait, wait —  you know for a fact that they weren’t trying to model them after the Strexpets? I was sure they were going for big doe eyes!” Amir held his hands before his face making his fingers into giant blinking lashes.

“If they were, it was about as successful at being cute as that creepy ‘bot.” Rachelle blanched and gave a dry laugh.

“What do you expect from a bug?”

“What are you talking about?” Carlos snapped stalking over. Before, he’d been gone for months and he’d picked right up where he left off. Now he was gone for just a week and the whole team spoke a different language.

“We got hard intel on that implant!” Rachelle laughed.

“You’re kidding?”

Evan pulled off his headset and tapped the earpiece. “Nope. Secret police monitoring can be a two way street if you know the right channels.” 

“And you learned about his eyes?” Carlos frowned.  He snatched the notebook from Evan and looked at the columns of ratios only to see it was a betting pool ledger. They were putting money on different theories about what happened to cause Kevin’s strange eyes and facial scars.

Dropping her smile, Rachelle became quiet, professional. “That’s why we tapped in.  To see if what they learned about the bug could give us information about what was done to his eyes.  How they might work.”

“And?”

“It’s the same with all the Strex office workers having black eyes.  The device hooks up so it can receive images.  It maximizes the organic parts it can use and trashes the rest to get it out of it’s way, so the globe of the eye becomes one big camera.”

“But the stuff that looks like ink?”

Rachelle smiled, pleased with herself. “It _is_ for controlling light and dark like an aperture.  But the whole eye ball is the aperture. The bug can signal that ink material where it floats. Move it like a magnet with iron filings, or expand and contract the size of the particles sort of like chromatophores in an octopus. All that to control how much light can filter into the globe by the position and density spread of the, uh, ink.”

“But why does he see in low light?”

“That’s harder to pin down. Part of it is just how much light can filter in when the stuff is floating free. And I think the material itself has an absorptive and refractive quality, like it can sub in for part of the destroyed retina. If I could take a sample—“

“No.” Carlos didn’t hesitate.

“Okay…”

“So his eyes are the bug’s camera…  But if you remove the bug?”

“You unplug the camera. Most optic nerves to the host’s brain have been severed and the interior bodies for controlling focus and light are wrecked. The bug became the primary intermediary between the eyes and host’s brain. The changes are permanent.”

Carlos pinched the bridge of his nose trying to reign in his anger. “Two things.” He said, looking up and slapping the notebook onto the table. “First, every dime in your stupid pool just became a donation to the Night Vale Opera House.  Second, if another one of you cracks a joke or so much as says ‘subject’ or ‘host’ again, I will replace you with a b-average undergraduate in a nanosecond. His name is Kevin.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Carlos was too irritated to try out his modifications to the glasses, and left early to walk home. All the time he’d spent at home with Kevin, his thoughts had circled around the bug and what his next step should be. The seizure-like episode and the moments where Kevin reported a flash of light and he himself witnessed the bug moving simultaneously… He knew an EEG was in order. Night Vale General was hardly going to open it’s doors and it’s most expensive equipment to his research, but EEGs were within reach of his labs resources. He’d also considered tracking down Jake or Vanston. It just made no sense that Strex’s equipment manuals listed human beings but no further record of the implant…

Also in this swirl of thoughts was one staring him in the face: go to Desert Bluffs and try to brute force Kevin’s memory by showing him familiar places. In fact, considering this plan was what led him to begin designing the glasses, so he could recognize locations and landmarks. But watching Kevin crater after finding out about Jacob, Carlos lost his enthusiasm to ‘brute force’ anything, and he plowed through finishing the eyewear in the hope of providing Kevin some autonomy and a reason to get up.

Now after a few minutes in the lab, he was fuming. Thoughts of the EEG and subjecting Kevin to his team turned his stomach.

He needed that bug.

Why would any machine so sophisticated eliminate Kevin’s memories?

The simple answer was, it wouldn’t and didn’t. It melded with Kevin’s personality, or used portions of it. No robot nor insect could have the same command of language, idiom, sense of humor — well maybe not humor— but still. If the implant had wiped Kevin’s memory, why on the recordings did he describe resisting his conversion? A cold thought struck Carlos too as he remembered Kevin’s anecdote about his grandmother’s throw pillows. What if it had _corrupted_ his memories?

He rounded the corner past Dark Owl and the White Sands Ice Cream Parlor trying to shake off the obsessive thoughts. Hannah was inside, on a step stool repainting their logo on the window glass. She saw him and waved and he managed to smile and wave back.

She hopped down and poked her head out the door.“Hey Mr. Scientist. Reopening in about a week! You and Cecil will come, right?” 

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

Passing Dark Owl, Michelle was behind the counter wrapped around some guy in an EMT uniform. She kicked a Closed sign at the glass without breaking her lip lock.

Carlos smirked stuffing his hands in his lab coat pockets and hurrying on. Okay, his team members were jerks, but it wasn’t all doom and gloom. The information they’d collected was a gold mine.

 

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

When Kevin got tired or overwhelmed by picking and worrying at the blank spaces in his head, or struggling to piece together what he’d recently learned and pretend this information was a memory, he tried to focus on things he liked in the present, things in the immediate now that was his life.

He liked when Carlos would let him take his arm and he could feel it, warm, solid and familiar under his hand. He liked Cecil’s voice. Of course he did. Everyone did. But he liked it when he was trying to go to sleep, and Cecil was speaking low and soft, just for him. He was a grown man, but oh god was he grateful that Cecil didn’t want him to be afraid. He loved that Cecil would lull him, stroke his hair and squeeze his hand, all the while acting like Kevin was the one doing him the favor to humor him by letting him help him to bed.

He ate it up.

And he liked how smart and sure Carlos was, like Jacob, wanting to solve practical problems. Kevin frequently held the glasses Carlos made him even when he wasn’t using them, and always kept them close in his jacket pocket.

He felt like a ghost with no past and no certain future. Right now he had more memories of the timeline from when Carlos found him than of the snippets of his old life. He loved Jacob and felt a stab of guilt that so much of his time with him was chopped up and murky in his head…

But guilt didn't help.

And right now, Kevin liked this: Cecil sitting him on the foot of he and Carlos’s bed while he held up tunics to his chest,  trying to dress him for their fancy night out.

 

 

“I like this gold color on you. We’ll put this in the ‘maybe’ pile.  How do you feel about plaid?”

There were several potential outfits laid out on either side of Kevin on the bed. Shirts, tunics, dashikis, striped leggings, kimonos, a kilt, a velvet tuxedo jacket, several pants and a rainbow tossed salad of accessories.

“Carlos? What are you wearing?”

Kevin looked over as the dark shape from the bright hall resolved itself into the scientist.

“I won’t be wearing plaid.” He winked at Kevin and began cherry-picking items off the bed: a neon fanny pack, bolo tie, some canary yellow leg warmers… When Cecil’s head was in the closet, Carlos dropped the stuff to the floor and nudged it under the bed with one smooth kick. Catching Kevin’s eye again, he put a finger to his lips.

Kevin grinned and nodded.

“Okay, so plaid is out. The dress lab coat?” He emerged to add some lavender mohair bellbottoms to the pile.

“Nope. No work gear. No lab stuff.” Carlos continued browsing items from the bed, putting together a ash colored dress shirt, dark, almost black, burgundy pants and a pair of Lucchese ostrich boots. “Where did you get these?”

Cecil blinked at them for a moment. “Police auction? Garage sale? Crane machine? I forget,” He shrugged.

Adding the Burberry scarf, Carlos looked from the clothing laid out to Kevin. “What do you think?

“On you or Cecil?”

“On you. It’s not my size and no one has the strength, speed or dexterity to wrestle Cecil into these things together.”

“That is NOT true!” Cecil huffed from the closet. "You don't know what I would or wouldn't wear!" Then he poked his head out and his eyes fell on the outfit in question. “Oh. I would, but you know, if Kevin likes it…”

 

 

When Carlos led Kevin back in, Cecil’s eyes got huge and he clapped his hands.

“Do I look okay?”

"Yes." Cecil gasped, nodding and bouncing on the bed. “Me next!”

Dressing Cecil proved more challenging. Not because of lack of things to choose from, but because the radio host kept suggesting additions and substitutions.

“No cowboy hat.”

“But it matches Kevin’s boots.”

“Kevin is wearing the boots.”

“Wait, so he gets _both_? And besides, he’s only wearing one boot." Cecil pointed to the cast. "I thought I’d wear the other so we matched.”

“No cowboy hat. No mismatched shoes.” 

“But it _would_ match. It would match Kevin’s.”

“I thought you wanted me to do this? Listen, if you let me put one outfit together uninterrupted, I’ll let you pick one for me.”

Cecil beamed. “Done!”

 

 

“This feels like cultural appropriation.” Carlos pushed the kilt back at Cecil.

The radio host flipped the label. “I’m sure the tailors at Kinloch Anderson will give you a pass from their ancestors. It’s a garment, not a ceremonial item.” He shoved both the tartan and Carlos towards the bathroom. “Please.”

“This is the last time I play Barbies with you.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

“The reservation is under Palmer.” Carlos felt his cheeks color as he saw the hostess glance at his legs and smile.

“Of course. Your table is right this way.”

He followed, Kevin grasping his elbow. “I told you I wasn’t wearing plaid.” He hissed at Cecil.

“You’re not. The pattern is called a tartan. Besides, you look great.”

“ _You_ look great.”

“He does.” Kevin agreed.

“I look like James Bond." Cecil sniffed, "Really, you couldn’t come up with anything better than just a dark suit? Oh my god, is that lava rock?” 

Weaving through the glossy jungle of Tourniquet, Carlos relaxed. They could have shot Cecil’s entire closet at each of them with a canon and not been out of place among Night Vale’s hipster set. At the bar, a young woman’s foot high sculpture of pink and black hair was ornamented with live Mexican free-tailed bats. The bartender was wearing both an eyepatch and a monocle while filling guests water goblets from a twenty foot water wall fountain behind the bar and another guest was dressed only in origami animals made from the Night Vale Daily Journal. They passed a table of hooded figures, hands clasped like they were holding a seance. As the untouched food on their plates vanished, a satisfied white mist emanated from the dark hollow of their hoods.  And yes, it was lava rock. The interior walls, tables, floor and bar top were a mix of the hard gloss of polished black volcanic glass and the prickly spongiform of charcoal basalt. It made the conversation, the piped in music, the kitchen sounds and the bubbling of the fountain echo through the dining room.

The hostess led them finally to a central table where they had a view of the bar and the open concept kitchen. Carlos pulled out chairs and seated Kevin, then Cecil, again feeling self conscious. He never felt this exposed in shorts. As he hurried to accept the drink menu and sit, he saw it. In the kitchen, a pair of eyes locked on them over the plating station.

“Cecil. Isn’t that your friend?”

Cecil beamed and waved. “Yes! Good ol’ Earl.”

Carlos glanced down the specialty cocktail list, seeing that this menu was the same black linen stock as the invitation. He made a mental note to pocket it for testing later, then leaned over to Kevin. “How’re you doing? Is the light okay?”

Kevin nodded. “It’s pretty good, but I might need you to read me the menu.” He tapped the black card.

Most of the mixed drinks were unholy concoctions of fruit juice, bitters, more bitters and Spiderwolf Mescal. Kevin demurred before Carlos even finished rattling off the contents of a Glowcloud. He didn’t want anything that might make him dizzy, and Carlos didn’t press him. 

Cecil followed suit. “I don’t want to dull experiencing the food. Maybe something with dessert.”

 

 

~~_To be continued…_ ~~

_2/4/2015 On indefinite hiatus_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I swear I’m not being coy about getting through the dinner, but it’s been a really long week and somehow just getting them dressed brought my word count up to about 3000 words. (The last couple chapters have been about 3000 words.) 
> 
> Also, no spoilers, (okay, maybe one) but the last ep sort of wigged me out. 
> 
> I was all ‘Yay! Cooking with Earl! It’s synchronicity!’ and then they had to drop that Hector bomb and… Please don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that they are going there with the story arc, but does this mean Joseph and Jeffrey are going to roast us over the coals with this until the anniversary or (oh god…) the book release? 
> 
> Freaked out teary voiced Cecil is my Kryptonite.


	11. Tourniquet, Pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin meets Earl, Cecil finally gets to sample all the fancy food he's heard about, and Carlos is still the best sport in the world.

While Carlos had little interest in the baroque cocktails, he wasn’t worried too much about his palate; he ordered a beer. This led to its own litany of choices: imported, domestic, stout, ale, local micro brew, hoppy, stroppy, floppy… As the options went on and on, Carlos watched over the waiter’s shoulder as a familiar pair crossed the back of the dining room to a reserved table by the window. Hiking up his folded wings so they cleared the heads of the diners and busy staff, Marcus Vanston sauntered behind the hostess, surveying the crowd with a heavy-lidded gaze of benign boredom. Trailing behind, tablet in hand, came Jake. Although they were impossible to miss, no one turned a head to them or gave them a backward glance, save Cecil, who Carlos saw excitedly lean over to point them out to Kevin. 

Both Marcus and Jake wore hardhats from the Opera House construction project, but were otherwise attired as they had been at the bowling alley. The scientist supposed if you had the kingdom of heaven and a large enough checkbook behind you, you could write your own dress code.

“Sir?”

Carlos blinked back to the server. “Beer. Ah, right…” He quickly selected something conservative (not even Marcus could pay him enough to try a Night Vale micro brew) and focused back on his party.

“And your host has prepared a special menu of courses for this evening, including a small plate, salad and soup to start and a choice of entrees.”

“He created a separate menu just for us?” Cecil blinked at the server.

“Yes sir. As sous chef, he asked that he be allowed to plan specifically for his guests, but I assure you, it is with the blessing of Tourniquet’s first in command.” The waiter smiled at Cecil’s enthusiasm.

“Oh my god. That’s so sweet!”

Carlos caught Kevin’s glance, smirked and gave a little eye roll. 

Kevin grinned and leaned over to Carlos. “You’ve met the angel?” He whispered.

“Erika.” Carlos corrected. “But yes, he owns the company that employed you. And he tried to help us find information on the device.” A thought occurred to Carlos at this exchange. He’d held off saying anything to Kevin or Cecil about what he’d learned at the lab. Short of writing a long series of notes to be destroyed, how could he communicate his team’s spying on the SSP in their heavily bugged home? But in a busy restaurant with so much random noise for coverage… “That didn’t go anywhere unfortunately, but today at the lab, my team had some new information.”

 

 

The first course brought out was an amuse-bouche: Banana tartar with slivered star anise, clove of aspic, and a dusting of fried vanilla needles.  Not wanting to completely steal focus from the meal, Carlos waited until they all had a chance to sample the appetizer before he explained about the converted structure of Kevin’s eyes.  The food was good. Maybe not science interesting good, but tasty none the less.

As he spoke, Carlos noted with a little amusement that Cecil and Kevin tended to mimic one another’s postures. It was like when they were in close proximity, they just sort of unconsciously synched up without noticing. It would have been a little creepy, except that it was very obvious the loci of each’s attention was on something totally different: Kevin was rapt on Carlos, while Cecil couldn’t stop inventorying who else was in the dining room or trying to catch Earl’s eye in the kitchen.

Oh god. The kitchen. Carlos shifted his knees under the table. Wasn’t going to the kitchen to greet the cook part of these expensive restaurant rituals? He’d rather model the kilt for Vanston than parade it in front of Earl.

“Anyway, this gives me some ideas of other therapies we could try even without the device, and also it’s possible the team could pick up even more useful intel in the future.”

Cecil quit casting around and zeroed back to the table discussion. “Other therapies? You made it sound like…”

He stopped as a colorful salad was placed in front of each of them.

“Baby century plant with fresh cholla shoots topped with crystalized nopalito and shaved lavender truffle.” The server announced.

Carlos caught the man’s sleeve. “Do you have any ranch dressing?”

“DON’T YOU DARE.”

 

 

Despite teasing Cecil, Carlos enjoyed the salad, even if it was loudly crunchy and a little extra chewy. As he worked on it, his eyes wandered to Marcus’s table.

Apparently this was a business meal, as Jake had a keyboard snapped on his tablet and was nodding and typing amid several sumptuous fruit and cheese plates covering the table. Carlos watched as Marcus ate and talked, slouched back in the chair, seven pairs of eyes roaming the ceiling. Every now and then he would lean forward and dab Jake’s tear-streaked face with a pocket square, before continuing his dictation.

“Okay, so before you made it sound like the bug tore up Kevin’s eyes so only it could use them.” Cecil picked up their thread.

“In a way, yes. It made them optimal for its use, but I don’t know if blocking other’s utility was part of its intention. Either way, knowing how the new structure admits light, it gives me some ideas. Particles in fluid can react to different vibrational wave frequencies. There’s a whole spectrum of benign levels we could apply. It would be much more versatile for Kevin if his eyes could adjust some to existing light levels rather than the other way around.”

“ _I think Carlos is saying he doesn’t like our Christmas lights_.” Cecil stage whispered to Kevin, and the other man grinned, ducking against the radio host’s shoulder. Cecil tilted in and kissed his temple.

“So you might get them to work like the glasses?” Kevin straightened, now blushing vividly.

Carlos tried not to smirk. “Basically, yes.”

The server reappeared, placing hot soup before each of them. “Starfish bisque with rue and lumpsucker roe.” He announced.

Cecil leaned over it and took a deep inhale. “Oh… That smells so good.” Then suddenly his eyes snapped open from his dreamy pleased expression, and he covered his open mouth with his hand. “Oh. Oh god. I just realized…”

“Are you okay?” Kevin asked, startled.

“Yes. Yes. It’s fine. I just realized about the menu, Earl has a theme.”

“What is it?”

Cecil swallowed and smiled sadly. “The banana thing? That was a fancy version of our first camp out dessert in Cub Scouts. The salad was when we did our edible desert plants badge together during survival training as Weird Scouts. And this…” Cecil glanced back at the kitchen. “Earl was so excited when I went to Europe. He asked me all about it and said he was going to learn to recreate my favorite food. This is a traditional Svitz recipe.”

Before Carlos could comment, he heard a throat clear and all three looked up. Earl stood over the table, quickly wiping sweat from his face with a bandana. He was in full chef’s whites, traditional checked pants and a single red curl escaped his toque. Besides the glimpse of hair, the only other personal affect was his neckerchief being fastened with his old Boy Scout slide.

“Just wanted to see how you were enjoying things.”  He held out a hand to Carlos who stood and shook it. “Welcome back. I know Cecil missed you terribly, but I suppose everyone in town knows that.” He smirked.

“Earl,” Cecil began, “This is Kevin. He was also stuck in the other world desert. In fact, he helped Carlos get back.”

The chef turned and shook Kevin’s hand too. If he registered anything odd, the scars, the eyes, his expression didn’t falter from a friendly grin. “Good on you. Kevin, is it?”

“Wouldn’t be here without him.”

“Heh. A scientist is sometimes fine?” Earl cracked. “Very good to meet you. How’s the meal been so far?”

“Wonderful.” Kevin smiled.

“Such a walk down memory lane.” Cecil told him. “It was so good of you to invite us.”

His eyes met Cecil’s a moment, “I’m glad. I wish I could visit more, but duty calls.” He jerked his head towards the kitchen, then his gaze traveled over Carlos, head to kilt with a small smirk. “Great to see you back.”

Cecil watched him return to the kitchen, “He seems really happy here. And did you see those checkered pants?”

 

 

 

For the entree selections, the server brought around more of the black linen finish cards and left them to peruse. Kevin squinted at his, then looked to Carlos for help.

“‘Choice of poached soft-shell ptarmigan, short loin of aubergine or blackened morel tendon in a rabbit’s milk reduction’,” The scientist read for him.

“It all sounds good,” Cecil sighed.

“If we each order a different one, we can sample everything.” Carlos suggested.

“Ooo. Perfect idea. Kevin?”

“I’m in.”

Carlos had noticed something funny during the early courses. Everything that has been put in front of Kevin was a little larger. Two extra bites of the pre-appetizer, a bowl instead of a cup of the soup. A few glances had told him that Cecil noticed it too, but neither said anything. However, when the entrees arrived, the difference seemed a lot more obvious.

“Oh wow.” Kevin sat back and blinked at the platter before him.

Hiding an affectionate smile in his napkin, Cecil glanced at the kitchen.

Carlos cocked an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.” Cecil cut into his short loin. “Earl’s just trying to feed the skinny kid. He was like that with the boys in his troop too.”

“Was he a Scout Master or a Den Mother?”

“Same difference.” Cecil shrugged. “I think it’s sweet.”

Kevin looked back and forth between the two. “I-I don’t think I can eat all of this.”

“Relax. We’ll take some home.”

 

 

 

Once the plates were cleared, leftovers wrapped in foil shaped like a scorpion, the final course of brandy and desert arrived: prickly pear cordial and a Mexican spiced chocolate horny toad mold with fire ants smoked in cayenne and marzipan.  

“I think Earl is making an environmental statement or he likes to rhyme.” Cecil had whispered before they dug in.

During the entree and into desert, the sous chef had emerged a few more times to greet and check in with particular tables, always finding a moment to look their way.

Even Kevin couldn’t miss seeing how the redhead looked at Cecil. Earl still had feelings. And they could not have been clearer if he’d scooped his heart out and plated it on white china along with the herbed armadillo breasts at the table beside them. 

“I think he likes you.” Kevin hissed leaning in. 

Cecil tried not to laugh at Carlos’s spit take over this.

“Did you date?”

“Ha. No. Too much history. And I think Earl depends too much on hierarchy,” Cecil waved a hand.  “All that boy scout and head of the kitchen chain-of-command stuff. He’s sticky.”

“Sticky?” Kevin looked to Carlos for help. A sip of the brandy had gone to his head, and he felt confused easily.

“I think Cecil’s trying to use a cooking metaphor.” The scientist smiled. “I’m pretty sure he means selfish.”

“Ah.”

Carlos divided the remains of the chocolate lizard's head in half. Drizzling some of the syrup over the marzipan filling he pushed a share of the last bite towards Kevin. “It’s a shame really, because this is seriously delicious.”

 

_...to be continued?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I got them through the dinner, and we even got to find out where Marcus and Jake nosh when they aren't helping reconstruct the Opera House or changing lightbulbs. (Despite owning Strex, I really don't think Marcus has the patience for corporate tedium.)  
> If you're still enjoying the fic, throw a comment down below, or share your Summer menu suggestions for Tourniquet.
> 
> I think I'm in a 'everything I write comes out sad' funk.  
> *shrugs*  
> What can you do besides try to take a break?  
> If you're tolerant of that sort of thing, I wrote a back story snippet of Earl and Cecil as kids that exists in this story's universe, but doesn't fit in here:  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/3382718


	12. Late Night Visits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It might be indigestion, or a nightmare, or it might be time to say something before there's a bit of an elephant in the room. Tonight's as good a night as any.

 

By the time they got home, it was late and each was full, sated and sleepy.

“Out of this. Out of this, out of this…” Carlos chanted, grinning and rubbing a hand over the wool of the kilt as Cecil fumbled with the apartment door key.

“But it looks so good.” Cecil pouted, straightening and letting go of the knob. “Kind of an 80’s punk sort of —“

“Don’t care.” Carlos grabbed the keys, laughing and plowed into the apartment and towards the bedroom. Cecil sighed and led Kevin in by the arm. “You thought it looked okay, right?”

Kevin smiled. “What I could see, yes.”

 

In the guest room, Cecil flipped on the smaller lights he’d arranged — another glow cloud night light from the Ralph’s and some LED patio lights with a dimmer switch — and adjusted them for Kevin. Then he had him sit on the bed so he could tug off the lone cowboy boot.

“Did you have a good time tonight?”

Kevin nodded. “It was great. I don’t remember the last time I ate that much.”

“Me either. And it was really good to see Earl in his element. Makes me happy.” Cecil sat next to him and considered the boot. “Huh. Carlos is right. These are pretty nice.” Kevin watched his eyes as he ran a hand over the ostrich skin with a doubtful look. “I wonder where I did get them…”

“You really don’t recognize them?”

Cecil huffed a little laugh and shrugged. “Nope. Not a clue.” He caught Kevin’s concerned look and bumped shoulders with him. “It happens, right? C’mon, you must be tired. I’ll let you get to bed.” He cupped Kevin’s cheek and pressed a kiss to his temple.

 

Later, face still flushed red as he settled down into the pillows, Kevin adjusted the dimmer switch and tried to sort out this exchange. Why couldn’t Cecil remember things? Had he seen how bad he made him blush? It was chaste, almost maternal, this kiss, right? He blinked, a reflex still, where he kept expecting his eyes to adjust, and tried to relax in the dark. And what had Carlos meant saying it was a shame Earl was too selfish when he was such a good cook?

He sniffed suddenly, realizing he knew what it meant. And also recognizing that instead of feeling awkward or weird, the understanding flooded him with a warm feeling of gratitude and a flicker of hope. He stretched and nestled into the pillow, smiling a little when he recognized Cecil’s scent on it from spending so many nights laying beside him. And soon he let the worry go and gave in to sleep.

 

Later still, at some unknown hour, Kevin felt a disconcerting feeling, like the mattress falling away under the stiff weight of his cast. He froze, hidden by the sheet half hooded over his head, and waited unmoving to see if something else would happen. The room was quiet. The bed and his legs were still. Maybe it was a phantom sensation, like falling in a dream?

He let his hand drift from beneath the covers to grasp the dimmer switch, while his eyes tried to sort through the murk of the room. Both Cecil and Carlos had told him about the Faceless Old Woman, but they’d also explained that they generally just found her organization and craft projects after she got done. She herself tended to conduct her activities out of anyone’s field of perception.  Ignore her and you’d never even know she was there…

Dialing up the light a little, Kevin felt a cold thrill up his neck. A portion of the dark didn’t melt, but remained impenetrable, a human shaped shadow standing at the foot of the bed. 

Gulping, he spun up the light, and the female outline with a halo of hair evaporated as he was able to see the room. 

He laughed softly.  It was just a dream, probably from the big meal of strange new foods.

Flopping onto his back, he left the light up and gave himself a little while to study the ceiling and calm down. Finally, he settled back on his side, rooted under the sheet so that it covered the back of his head and his ears once more, and turned the dimmer switch down.

The shadow figure was now seated on the bed with him, closer, at his middle. He froze, unable even to swallow.

“Kevin?” A quiet voice asked. “Don’t you know me?”

The flickers and flashes of light with no source, save to reveal temporal openings, crackled before Kevin’s wide eyes, but he couldn’t move or speak.

The shadow leaned in even closer, right up to him as though seeking to be eye to eye, but all he could see where its facial features should have been were even darker holes.

“Kevin, please. I’ve missed you so much.”

He felt the press of a small cold hand against his cheek and began to scream.

 

……………………….<>……………………….

 

It was hard for Carlos and Cecil to make out what Kevin had seen or what he was trying to say, he was so frightened and couldn’t talk for stammering. With one on either side of him, they corralled him in their arms until he managed a few deep breaths and calmed some.

“It was a nightmare,” He panted. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey. There’s nothing to be sorry about. Shh.” Carlos rubbed his back in slow firm circles.

“What did you see?” Cecil asked.

Over Kevin’s shoulder, Carlos gave Cecil a dark look and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter really. Why try to recall a bad dream?”

“No, you’re right.” Cecil nodded frowning and glanced at the covered mirror over the bureau.

Catching his look, Carlos softened his voice. “You should go back to bed. I’ve got this. Okay?”

Cecil looked about to argue, then sighed and gave Carlos a grateful smile. He stood, stroked his hand over Kevin’s hair, kissed Carlos and slipped out.

Carlos shifted on the bed, leaning against the headboard and let Kevin curl against his chest. “We’ll just leave the lights like this right now, alright?”

Kevin nodded against him, shivering. “Carlos?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not a child.” 

It sounded petulant, frightened, belying itself, like a little kid denying an obvious fact. 

Except it was true.

Carlos blinked, but recovered well and made his voice quiet, serious. “I know. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I get worried, and sometimes confused. I like you both so much, and sometimes I don’t know if it’s because — I thought it was because you took care of me. Only that. But you and Cecil aren’t like anyone I’ve known, except maybe one… Anyway, I feel so much for both of you but I never wanted to say anything. If I did anything that caused a problem or made me lose either or you, I couldn’t live with that.”

Carlos listened to this, stifling a small bemused smile. “Is this about me teasing you over Cecil kissing your cheek?”

“A little bit. Yes.”

“And you’re worried that might make you a home wrecker?”

“Please don’t make fun of me Carlos…”

Carlos dropped his head trying to hide his smile, composed a more serious face and met Kevin’s gaze. “Okay. Listen. First of all, you’re fine. You don’t need to feel guilty enjoying him being affectionate. Okay? And, not that at the moment either of us have any intentions other than to get you well, but even down the road, in the future, I can tell you that what you’re worried about would only be a problem if you kept bottling it up and hiding it.”

“What do you mean?”

Carlos sighed, considering his words. “Cecil believes more in ‘yes, and,’ as opposed to ‘either/or’.”

“I dont understand…”

“You’ve seen him choose ice cream, right? If he likes licorice and blood orange or whatever the heck, he won’t pick.  He’ll just order two scoops, together, on the same cone.”

“But he’ll have a favorite.”

Carlos shrugged. “Anyone he loves is his favorite. Janice is his favorite niece. I’m his favorite scientist. He’ll throw those descriptors out to try to explain himself, but honestly, it’s all one big vast and bottomless pool.”

“What about you?”

Carlos searched the nervous and confused eyes, so much like his partner’s, and picked his words carefully. “I love Cecil, very much. And I love my work.  I don’t socialize a lot, or worry about meeting other people, so honestly it hardly comes up with me, but I don’t ever want him to be lonely because I get caught up in something at the lab.  He’s so open and demonstrative… Seriously, he’s an open book, and that really made me okay with it. He tells me everything, often as he’s thinking it himself,” Carlos laughed a little. “In physics, you learn matter can neither be created nor destroyed, right? Love and affection aren’t like that. The more you make the more there is. You say you like us both so much, so where’s the problem? We both like you, so who’s left out to be jealous?”

“You make it sound too simple.”

Carlos stroked a lock of hair from Kevin’s eyes before slipping that arm back around him. “Maybe it’s not simple, but if everyone’s honest, it helps. And,” He caught Kevin’s eyes and softened his voice. “If it bothers you, I can tell Cecil to knock it off.”

“No. No.” Kevin shook his head and Carlos grinned.

“I didn’t think so. Come here.” He tugged Kevin close and the other man curled against him, dropping his head onto his chest with a deep sigh.

“I - I like this. Just this right now.” Kevin said in a very small voice. “Right now it’s all I want.”

“I know.” Carlos told him. “It’s okay.”

 

_(eventually) to be continued_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First time writing something for someone else...  
> First time trying to humanize a villain character...  
> And, first time dealing with a poly situation...
> 
> If I made a pig's eye out of it, I'm going to beg off by pointing to my amateur status. :)


	13. More and more Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin's got problems he doesn't even know about.

When Kevin woke late the next morning, Carlos was gone, but the room had been left lit so he could see, and through the open bedroom door he could smell coffee and hear Cecil’s activity in the kitchen, so he didn’t feel abandoned. Limping into the living room, he found Cecil had adjusted the lights in here already for him and he smiled.

“Carlos went into the lab for a bit.” Cecil explained. “Did you sleep alright? I mean after the bad dream?” Cecil poured him coffee and guided him over to the table to sit.

Kevin blushed. Resting against Carlos after clearing the air had been the best he’d slept since…   Since…  Feeling a swelling ache to think of Jacob and realizing he was having a flashing memory of his scent, Kevin got lost. He swallowed a thick lump in his throat and took a breath…

“Kevin?” Cecil looked worried.

“Yeah.” He managed in a small voice. “I did. I think I just needed…” He couldn’t finish.

Cecil nodded and slipped an arm around him. “It’s okay. Believe me. Carlos makes a fine security blanket —he’s really good that way.” He offered Kevin a little smile and it was returned bashfully. This made Cecil beam. “Can I fix us some breakfast? Scrambled eggs? And Steve Carlsberg left some orange scones. They’re actually decent—”

“Cecil?  You and Carlos have done so much for me. Were - were you serious about me helping you with the pledge drive?”

Cecil gripped Kevin’s shoulders and held him at arm’s length to study his face.  “Yes. Of course, and I would love that! If you’re up to it, I can show you the programing notes and the sponsor copy we have so far…” The radio host was aglow. “After breakfast, of course. Yes?”

Kevin nodded. “Yes.”

 

 

“So, as you probably know, we have a varied programing commitment with many contributors — station management hardly has time to reveal them all to us. The schedule has always been flexible, but packed. We do nothing so by rote as WZZZ. What I’m trying to say, is that it’s a really really big deal that there is an entire 24 hour period to be blocked off just to conduct this pledge drive…”

Cecil stopped at the top of the landing before the upstairs office. “I’m sorry. I’m a little nervous about it. I don’t think Carlos understands how important it is in terms of the station and my career.”

Kevin nodded. “Jacob could understand because research funding was so hard to come by — but he didn’t always realize that kind of stress is worse when you also have to perform publicly.”

“Exactly!” Cecil linked arms with him and shoved open the door. “You and I, we don’t get to go hide in a lab.” He guided Kevin to a chair and looked around at the overhead fixture and Carlos’s desk lamp. “You’ll have to give me a minute to figure out the lighting…”

But when he looked back at Kevin, he stopped. The other man had pulled up to the small mixing console, found the microphone and after a few adjustments, cued up the reel to reel. “This is quaint. I-I remember now, our system, DBCR’s was digital, but this is just like in college when we had to edit and card real tape.”

The instant duck-to-water comfort of Kevin with the equipment delighted Cecil too much for him to think very hard about the implication that his technology was anything less than top of the line.

“Great! Let’s do a voice test and set your levels. We’ll figure out the lights when you need to read copy.” He pulled up Carlos’s chair, plopped down and grabbed his head phones.

 

……………………

 

The other two options for light control glasses Carlos was tinkering with were a pair that fit on an elastic band and looked like swim googles — not his first choice for comfort — and one similar to his initial pair, but with a more light weight fabric around the edges.  On his last trip into the lab, he had applied a coating similar to mylar to the back of some thin cotton.  While part of him said doing a what-you-see-is-what-you-get test of just holding the sealed fabric up to a lamp was good enough, he still set his test pieces on the aperture of a light box and slid a sheet of photo paper inside.  As he adjusted and smoothed the edges, he heard the door open.

Rachelle entered the work room.

“I’m just here to finish this up.”

“Is that code for you’re still pissed off?”

“A little bit. Yes. Unless Evan got some other juicy intel since yesterday, I really just want to focus here.” He turned back to the fabric samples.

She didn’t budge though. “I hear you, but look, the betting pool was out of line, but I don’t think you understand what kind of over-ask it was for you to bring him in here,” Rachelle began.

Carlos straightened and met her eyes.

“Then tell me.”

“Carlos, you didn’t get arrested by Strex — you walked straight into the other desert. You weren’t surrounded by a hive of those black-eyed things.  Did you know that he did that himself to his face? Who was that woman he broadcast with? Lauren?” Rachelle dropped her voice and shut the door behind her. “She told me that when he was hired, he did that to _himself_ to show his loyalty to Strex selecting him as their voice,” She whispered. “‘For public appearances! Always smile!’ Is what he told her. Even she seemed freaked out by it. ”

“Why the betting pool then?”

“I never told the others about her. That woman kept singling me out to talk to. It was strange. When Evan started the pool, I let them because I thought it gave them a way of blowing off steam — I thought they needed that — and after everything else I didn’t see any reason to put that mental image in their heads.”

The scientist listened, studying his colleague’s face. Finally he nodded, trying to process this. “I could have been more sensitive to how quickly I asked you to be face to face with him. I want you to understand, I heard what was happening. What was broadcast. I was stuck where I couldn’t help, listening and wondering about what was happening to Cecil, to you and the team, and to our friends in town.”

He glanced out the work room window into the main lab. “And I know that I’ve had longer to see who he really is. I took for granted that you and everyone would feel the same way upon meeting him — or at least be able to set it aside. You do know though, that he was ‘hired’ by Strex in much the same way as most people joined the Company Picnic?”

Rachelle frowned and nodded. “I re-listened to the broadcasts. Amir and Evan did too. Between that and seeing the physical evidence… He was a pawn. I know that.”

 

……………………

 

“Here we are…” Cecil had the system utilities open on the computer and was trying out different adjustments for the monitor. Already he’d created a near approximation of the twilight Kevin could see in with an old lava lamp and covering the desk lamp with an open umbrella. “Hmm. I can invert the colors of the text, make it grayscale or increase the size. We could also try text to speech through the headset, but the delay might hurt your timing.” Pleased with finding so many options, Cecil’s first impulse was to enable everything, but he reined it in. “Kevin?”

He looked at the other man who was facing the monitor and his smile dropped when he didn’t get a response. Kevin’s head was twitching almost imperceptibly forward and back and Cecil could see a flicker of his black eyes moving rapidly, before he started to blink slowly and rhythmically, ramming his eyes shut and open again.

“Kevin?” Cecil tried again and put a hand on his shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

Jerking his head to the side, Kevin’s face then relaxed. “Oh, you found it. That looks good. ‘We’d like to thank Applebee’s, The Olive Garden and Arby’s for their continued Gold Sponsor level support…’” He read from the screen.

“Are you okay?”

Kevin looked confused. “Yes. What is it?’

Cecil’s eyes narrowed. “What was I doing just before you read that bit of copy?”

Kevin looked confused. “Trying to find the window to fix the monitor.”

“Did you hear me tell you the options?”

“W-what do you mean?”

Cecil studied his face. “You sort of tuned out there. Kind of scared me.”

“I-I’m okay.”

“Okay.” Cecil softened his voice, realizing that he was causing alarm. “You’re alright. Could I ask you a question?”

“Of course. Anything.” Kevin twisted his hands in his lap.

“Carlos said you see flashes of light some times. But that’s gotten better, hasn’t it?”

Kevin grimaced and shifted, making Cecil reach forward to take one of his hands to hold. “It never stopped. I feel a lot better, but the flashes are just there.”

“And they’re portals?”

“Not always. Sometimes they’re just flashes. Like extra light builds up, and it has to burst out.”

“Are they getting less frequent though?”

Kevin’s head dropped. “No. It’s getting worse.”

Tipping the other man’s chin up with a finger, Cecil slipped an arm around him. “Okay. That’s okay. We’ll tell Carlos and try to figure it out.” He offered a little smile. “Everyone has a hiccup, right? But truthfully, tell me, over all are you feeling better?”

“Much better.”

 

……………………

 

 

As Carlos walked home, Lucy hurried out of the White Sands and pressed a flier in his hand. “Soft reopening at the end of the week.” She grinned. “Bring that sugar fiend of yours and anyone else you can think of.”

“You got it.” He pecked her cheek.

At the house, he could hear muffled sounds from the office and paused. It sort of sounded like music. 

Sort of.

“Cecil? Kevin?”

“Up here!” His boyfriend called.

After coming home before to discover the living room immersed in smell-o-vision, Carlos paused before jogging up the stairs. Cecil sounded way too chipper. Did he really want to know what had befallen their office? He  tried to brace himself and pushed the door open.

Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. They were singing along to subtitled videos remixed in G-major, which was currently making the Beastie Boys ‘Intergalactic’ sound like Anton LeVey doing an address from the Church of Satan. When one screwed up, the other took a turn trying to keep up with the rap. Cecil stunk, but Kevin clearly knew the words even without the karaoke assist on screen.  Seeing both of them, mirror reflections of each other on either side of the mic was probably the strangest part of it. He wondered if musical rhythm exacerbated their habit of syncing movements and manners. It was an interesting thought, but how would you test it?

“Your turn!” Cecil thrust the mic in the scientist’s face.

“What — ah — ‘I like my sugar with coffee and cream.’” He managed to rap off the screen prompt and Kevin cracked up. Carlos reached for the mixing board, but didn’t know how to find any of the controls. 

Kevin’s hand slipped easily to turn the volume down. “Better?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He laughed. “So… Is there a talent show portion of the pledge drive?”

“Oooo. There should be.” Cecil’s eyes narrowed. “No, no… Can’t get distracted. Carlos, all this was like riding a bike for Kevin. We even prerecorded one of the sponsorship promos.  At this rate we could get them all done by Saturday and between that and trading off during the live broadcast—“ Cecil hugged Kevin and planted a huge kiss on his cheek, “Oh, thank you so much! This is going to be so much easier with your help.” And Cecil dropped his head on his shoulder as he gave him another squeeze, giddy with relief.

Kevin turned brick red, putting his arms around Cecil, and, after a moment of nerves perhaps, smoothed his hand over Cecil’s hair, smiling shyly.

 

……………………

 

That night after dinner, Cecil hopped on the couch and grabbed the remote. Kevin took the other end while Carlos flopped in the middle with a yawn.

“Oh! The Professionals!  This one is soooooo good!” Cecil gushed. “Have you seen it Kevin?”

“Uh, no.”

“Yep. It’s really great.” Carlos agreed stretching. “At least it was the first twenty or so times…”

“Shhh. It’s just starting!” Cecil flashed Kevin a grin before turning back, rapt, to the screen.

Kevin settled in to watch, curious after such a ringing endorsement…  But not five minutes into the film, Carlos tugged one of the throw pillows across Kevin’s legs and dropped down to lay his head in his lap. The scientist stretched again, splaying his toes and letting his feet rest on Cecil, who without even a downward glance took one and began to massage it.

Kevin swallowed and looked down at Carlos’s profile, chewing his lower lip. The scientist’s eyes were closed lazily, and his relaxed face was framed with black glossy curls, highlighted with a slightly wiry little shot of silver at the temples.  This sight in his lap held so much more fascination and charm than what could arguably be Lee Marvin’s finest work on screen… What was the movie called again?

With a deep breath, Kevin lifted his hand, then hesitated. 

This was an invitation. And not a very subtle one. He knew that.

Steeling himself, he lowered his hand down to stroke Carlos’s hair, letting the back of his fingers smooth along his temple. The corner of the scientist’s mouth crooked up in a pleased little smile.

“He’s the biggest lap cat.” Cecil told him, still massaging a foot and with his eyes glued to the film. “He’ll let you do that all night.”

“Okay.” Kevin grinned and added a gentle scratch of his nails to his finger combing.

Carlos’s smile broadened at this, but his eyes didn’t open. “Lucy and Hannah are reopening at the end of the week.” He murmured sleepily.  “They invited us to the party. You’re up for White Sands ice cream, right?”

“Oh yes.” Cecil and Kevin answered together and Carlos snickered.

 

 

Kevin would have been perfectly happy if Carlos had elected to sleep on the couch in that arrangement, but alas, when the movie was over, Cecil rose and woke the scientist from his doze, and the little group broke up to their respective bedrooms. Cecil kissed Kevin’s cheek in the hall, still thanking him for volunteering for the pledge drive and Carlos gave him a sleepy squeeze and peck goodnight, which made his insides turn to warm goo. He wanted to follow them down the hall and nestle in with this tired and languid Carlos and continue stroking his hair and and feel him, warm and comfortable among the soft sheets…

He sighed and smiled settling into bed, adjusted the lights and closed his eyes, letting himself enjoy the thought of gently holding the scientist, feeling his heart and breath, and continuing to caress his hair…

“You look happy Kevin.” A familiar voice said. 

He froze and drew a slow breath, not as startled as he had been the time he’d heard this voice before…

“Please don’t be afraid.”

He opened his eyes unwillingly, wanting desperately for it to be a dream fragment so he would see nothing in the room…   The longer he didn’t look the longer he could keep this illusion.

But no. The gray silhouette was a few feet from the bed.

“I won’t touch you — and you don’t have to answer me. But I am so glad to see you happy.”

“D-do I know you?” His voice was barely an audible squeak.

“You did. We were good friends.” The shadow approached and Kevin could see her shape and halo of full hair, but he could also see the dresser and mirror frame right through her middle.

“But you’re not real.”

“Strictly speaking, I think I am not. But I had to see you. To see you’re okay.” The dark thing cocked her head and sat on the edge of the bed beside him, making no dip or movement of the mattress.

“Um. Thank you… ?” He managed. “But I-I don’t remember you, and I don’t think I should… um, talk to not-real things.”

“I understand.  I wanted to tell you though, I’m here for you… I’m here…”

And then she wasn’t.

He blinked, still searching the blank space where she’d been.

Kevin heard a soft rap of knuckles on the door. “Y-yes?”

Cecil poked his head in. “Kevin? You okay? I thought I heard voices.” He rubbed an eye and yawned.

“I think I was having a dream — but that was me talking — the voice.”

Cecil tilted his head as though considering Kevin’s words, or perhaps the way he said them. Then, without comment, he entered and put his arms around the other man.  How did Cecil read him so well? Kevin couldn’t guess… He sighed letting his head drop into Cecil’s neck, and felt himself guided down to the pillow, Cecil following until they were laying curled together. He stroked Kevin’s hair with a free hand and tugged the covers over them before snugging his grasp, and Kevin relaxed, surrendering, already calming.  Eyes closed, there was just the warmth of Cecil’s embrace, his familiar scent surrounding him and the cocoon of the blankets, and Kevin let himself forget about his shadow visitor, about the flickers and flashes in his eyes and head, and about the empty ache he felt when he could only remember Jacob and nothing more of a vanished home. He gave Cecil a weary nuzzle and soon slept.

 

…………….<>…………….

 

(Somewhere both Vague and Menacing…)

 

“Clearance code Theta and above have access to the White Floor. Please have your retina cleaned and ready for authorization scans.” A crisp digitized voice said as the elevator opened.

The new researcher sniffed and applied a drop of Visine to each eye as he stepped off and approached the ward entry station. It has taken him two hours of badging in and providing credentials, a DNA, urine, hair, aura and blood sample and being debriefed on entry procedures in first the Montauk Room, the Philadelphia Room and finally the Rainbow Room. At this point a little retina scan seemed pretty pedestrian.

He sighed and set his chin in the cup, relieved to hear the lab door open immediately following the strobe of light across his eye.

The entry point of the White Floor was a long hall looking into numerous climate controlled clean rooms. One held some cryo-cylinders, another some compressed asbestos bales buffering the target area for compact laser testing, an eye-wash station, and everything-wash station, and finally a pingpong table and Slip ’n’ Slide. Beyond this was another security door requiring badge authorization.

“Jesus. Each one is younger than the next. Are you even drinking age?” A junior officer in full tactical gear and mask met him to badge him in.

“I’d remind you that I was requested for this assignment.”

“Jeez. Touchy.”

 

Once inside the lab, the senior researcher, a man clad in a full white contamination jumpsuit and hermetically sealed face mask, intercepted him. “Right in here. I’m leading the team on this project. You’ll refer to me as Alpha. For your duration here, you’ll be Beta, and our support team — ”  

“Let me guess. Gamma, Delta and so on.”

“Yes.” Alpha directed him into a clean room and ignored the disdain in the younger man’s voice. “You’ll want to suit up in here.  We’ve mandated universal precautions with the device. I only got a quick look at your history. You’re familiar with the company?”

“Only bird’s eye view. They said you needed someone familiar with biological neurons synching with nano receptors.”

The Alpha nodded. “Specifically how it codes data. It’s different from our chip technology.”

The younger man shrugged into one of the contamination jumpsuits and began fastening the front. “And what exactly happened to your previous researcher?”

“ _Researchers_.” Alpha corrected. “Nerve damage. The device in not safe to handle without precautions. It is not safe to store without adequate containment.”

Sliding a tablet from his satchel, the new recruit tapped at it, scrolling through some notes. “This isn’t the first of these you’ve handled…”

“It is.”

“But I show arrest records for dozens of Strex office drones.”

“That’s correct, however once they were in custody and before we understood the nature of what we were dealing with, the devices disengaged and fled.”

“Except this one.”

“Correct. Possibly due to some damage it sustained. Also it was forcibly removed.”

The younger man frowned. “Haven’t the shells been a source of insight? I’d like to first see the data you’ve been able to gather from them about the symbiotic relationship. Biologic effects and alterations? And especially to compare with this damaged one and its previous host. In fact, that’s where I’d prefer to start.”

“Not possible.”

“Why?”

“We had no need of the shell and are not in possession of it.  It’s the technology that’s of interest to us. Anyway, by now I’m sure it will have gone the way of the others.”

“I don’t understand.”

Alpha sniffed, wondering if that would be the last time he’d get to hear this little know-it-all admit ignorance. “All of the Strex employees we took into custody perished once their drone devices fled. Generally within a month or two. I would expect the previous owner of this one to be no different.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh crap. I guess I'm back to the plot again. 
> 
> Has anyone kept track of how long it's been since Carlos yanked that thing out of Kevin's head? I count three weeks about, so probably he's good to get through the pledge drive. Right?
> 
> On the other hand, time is weird in Night Vale and I wouldn't rely on information gleaned from the SSP.


	14. White Sands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not much progress is made on Kevin's head troubles, but at least there's ice cream.

“It’s like a record skipping.” Cecil was curled in the crook of Carlos’s arm, eyes closed, face buried in his hair. It was Sunday night and he was restless thinking about Kevin.

Carlos studied the ceiling from his pillow.  “It sounds like the episode we saw at the lab. I mean, I’ve noticed a pause or two since then, but I hadn’t caught one long enough to ask him what was going on. I was hoping it was getting better.”

Biting his lip, Cecil shook his head against the scientist’s ear. “I think he’s been downplaying it. Doesn’t want to cause a fuss.” He whispered. “But when I asked him, he said the lights were getting worse.”

The other nodded. “I can do an EEG at the lab, and we can follow up at the hospital — he has the appointment this week to check on his ankle.”

“Why would it be getting worse instead of better?” Cecil burrowed against his partner and Carlos knew from the petulant tone Cecil didn’t expect an answer. He was just voicing frustration.

Carlos rolled to his side and slid an arm around Cecil. “I don’t know. But I’m trying to figure it out.” He kissed his forehead. 

 

The White Sands, like a lot of ice cream establishments, was brightly lit and decorated with light white and pastel colors. Kevin couldn’t see at all and even kept his eyes closed against the glare, but he smiled to smell the light tingle of sugar, cut ripe fruit and rich coffee drinks brewing against the ozone background of the humming freezer cases. Carlos let him link onto his arm as he introduced him to Hannah and read him the ice cream flavors and other offerings. 

“What sounds good? I’m thinking about the tiramisu.” The scientist mused.

Before Kevin could choose, he heard Cecil, further down, drumming his fingers on the display glass in indecision.

“You can put two scoops in a float.” Lucy was telling him.

“Oh, then both definitely! Kiwi and the anise in the absinth float.”

Kevin snickered and Carlos gave him a knowing squeeze.

 

The week had felt like a bust to Carlos in terms of progress or answers. Amir was out sick, so only Evan was combing through the covert audio recordings of SSP chatter for any intel on the bug. Carlos went through with his own exam at the lab that didn’t yield much. While the EEG showed varied regional activity of normal brain function, there were jumps and shivers that Carlos didn’t want to describe to Cecil or Kevin until he understood more — worried their imaginations might run wild and scare them unnecessarily.  The hospital visit was even more frustrating. The bones in Kevin’s foot an ankle were knitting well, but the interview with the doctor about the lights and neurological hiccups fell on deaf ears. 

“Many people with vision loss will see lights and even floods of colors. The pictures we think of as our eyes seeing is actually created by our brain as a composite of light information. It’s perfectly normal for the mind to continue to signal and attempt to form those images.”

“But the neurological lapses. The big pauses, almost like seizures—“ Carlos pressed.

“He’s trying to adapt to a new way of perceiving his environment. You need to give him time to focus and process.” The doctor frowned. “Maybe I could refer you to a counselor?”

 

After spinning his wheels during the week with nothing reassuring to show for it, Carlos was glad to relax and just be a reliable guide dog among familiar faces in a cheery party atmosphere. Maybe he hadn’t solved any big problems this week, but Kevin was delighted to hang on his arm and Lucy and Hannah looked so proud to be showing off their new store and passing out tasting spoons. Carlos told himself this was right, this was the world in its order: for someone to be in their element. Earl in his kitchen, Cecil at his mic, he in his lab, and Lucy and Hannah to be mixing fruit, liquor and spices into their smooth frozen swirls…

 

“There has to be people from Strex in Desert Bluffs.” Cecil began. The opening party was winding down and Lucy and Hannah had joined them at their table to gab.  “Or rather, _some_ people — live humans. The Night Vale Daily Journal printed that letter from them after the revolt.” Cecil insisted.

“The imagination edition did,” Carlos corrected. “I never saw it.”

Hannah smirked and rolled her eyes.

Cecil shot him a hurt look. “What are you implying exactly?”

“That you typically tell me all about the imagination edition the morning after a night when when you’ve drunk one of these.” Carlos tapped the foot of the parfait glass that was already drained of its acid-green contents.

Lucy laughed. “Get him another Hannah! I want to hear what the paper has to say about the reopening tomorrow.”

The other woman shook her head and straddled her chair. “Why don’t y’all just go to Desert Bluffs?”

Kevin, in the middle of his second sunflower and honey sorbet,  put his spoon down, turning and cocking his head to listen.

“We’ve talked about it a little,” Carlos said. “But with none of our leads on old employees panning out, we’d be trolling the streets asking questions of random strangers. Although at the rate we’re going, maybe that’s not a bad idea?”

Lucy looked from Kevin to Cecil with a small frown. “You wouldn’t go to the radio station? No… Probably not.”

His mouth becoming a pale thin line, Cecil shook his head. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

Kevin tried to point himself at Cecil. “It might not be a pleasant place to go, but you said different prompts could help me remember things. Maybe it would jar something loose?”

Cecil swallowed, considering. “It might.”

“But we shouldn’t worry about it until after the pledge drive tomorrow of course.” Kevin added offering a smile. “Right?”

 

Cecil had seemed quiet as they came home, Kevin noticed. It was probably nerves about their job the next day, and he was glad that they chose to go to bed early. 

But that night, not long after he’d settled down, the friend he couldn’t remember sat on the edge of his bed without disturbing the mattress again. 

“I wouldn’t go back there Kevin.” She told him, for all the world as though she’d been privy to the conversation earlier.

He didn’t answer, but watched the form, wondering if he could make out a reddish hue to the hair… The shadow tilted her head to the side and seemed to study him sadly with her dark sockets. “I wish you would talk to me again, and even though I miss you, you shouldn’t go back…” she trailed off.

Despite himself, Kevin wanted to respond. Her name was just on the tip of his tongue… But if she was telling him not to try something that might open his memory back up…  Why would she do that? If they were friends, why wouldn’t she want him to remember?

He couldn’t stop himself. “But Desert Bluffs is my home.” He whispered at last.

“You’re safer here in the dark.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voice Mail... Er, well, uh...  
> Let's just say this was easier to write before that episode... Because I'm a giant chicken, okay? I admit it.  
> Anyway, originally this was going to roll into the chapter with the pledge drive, but I've been super busy, it's been too long since I posted, and I'm not going to be a big fraidy cat just because canon K-word is back...  
> Many apologies that it's a shorty chapter, but consider it a promise that I will work through my outline and finish this. :)
> 
> Reassuring lies like 'everything will be okay' in the form of comments are welcome...


	15. The Pledge Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armed with a scientist and a spare radio host, Cecil puts on a smile and plows into the Pledge Drive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pledge drive is my clearing house for characters I love but couldn’t find another way to stuff them in here. :) I apologize in advance. Also, there *might* be a fic writer ref. Or not. Who knows? Not me…

 

**Saturday, 8am or a close approximation Night Vale standard time.**

 

**Minus 1 hour and counting:**

 

For the pledge drive, NVCR had temporarily been moved to the Children’s Science Museum so they could use its large central gallery, Discovery Hall, as volunteer mission control. The Touch and Feel Cactus Garden was carted outside and Cecil installed a table with his mobile broadcast unit, while behind him Sara Sultan oversaw volunteers from the Night Vale Community College as they set up seats and phone banks for the pledge drive volunteers. Discovery Hall was primarily lit by a line of skylights, so Kevin was able to make use of his glasses and Cecil even threw together a box of various lamps, shades and dimmers for when the sun went down.

Along the far wall, Larry Leroy scooted a mounted articulated skeleton of a pteranodon felled by the PTA out of everyone’s way and used it’s spread wings to hang a dry erase board for Carlos. The scientist was put in charge of tabulating the pledges and posting results to help keep workers morale up and track their goal.  As Carlos wrote out the goal amount, his phone buzzed in his pocket and he fished it out.

“What time is it?” Cecil called anxiously.

“8:30.” Distracted, Carlos glanced at the phone. It was Rachelle. He pocketed it making a mental note to call her back. She could wait until they got through set up at least.

 

**15 minutes to Air:**

 

“We have until Midnight tomorrow.” Cecil told Kevin for the dozenth time, showing him around the room before making sure the laptop he brought had the screen settings he could read the easiest.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Kevin smiled. “Look at everyone who’s pitching in. I’m sure if everyone works really really hard to their fullest potential— Oh… uh, Cecil? Are you alright?”

The radio host had frozen at this, then caught himself and shook his head huffing out a laugh. “Wow. Yes. Um, just a big wave of deja vu there. Ha.”

Kevin blinked several times, the weird slow rhythmic blink he’d done before, and then Cecil saw him twitch. 

Once. Twice. …A third time.

“Kevin?”

A few more blinks.

“Kevin?”

“It’ll all be okay,” Kevin assured him, completely unaware that he’d just been unresponsive for several seconds. “You’re so very good at your job!”

Cecil managed a smile and swallowed. “Thank you sweetheart.” He leaned over and gently kissed Kevin’s scarred up cheek.

 

**Hour One:**

**Donations - $0.00 of (Undisclosed amount )**

 

“Listeners, I am being told that our creditors will not be accepting anything but legal tender. Rabbits, English, angora or otherwise, hit points, Ralph’s coupons nor ‘Camel Cash’ can be accepted for this drive. We hate to turn anything away, but thank you for your understanding.”

 

**Hour Two:**

**Donations - $652.03 of (Undisclosed, highly redacted amount)**

 

An audio retrospective of electric toothbrushes and oscillating fans as performed by the Night Vale Community College Vocational Small Engine Shop Class.

 

**Hour Three:**

**Donations - $652.03 of (The same still undisclosed, highly redacted amount)**

 

Blood Stone Chants in the round featuring the Beatrix Loman Memorial Choir.

 

**Hour Four**

**Donations - $729.07 of <place arbitrary monetary notation here>**

 

As Kevin queued their first pre-recorded sponsorship spot, Cecil grabbed some water and went to check on Carlos. Making his way over to the dry erase board, he passed some Weird Scouts who were stopping a sheriff’s secret police officer from pepper spraying a ringing phone that startled him.  

Oh boy. It’s going to be a long day, he mused, then looked up to see Carlos fussing around a still almost completely blank white board.

“You’re not keeping our progress chart colored in?” He cocked his head at the empty outline the scientist had sketched.

“Now that I look at it, I’m not sure how…”

“Well, I’m not the one that made it a Klein bottle or whatever you called that thing. Couldn’t you just draw a thermometer or a blood droplet? That’s what the hospital and blood bank does.”

“Hm. What about a scatterplot matrix?”

“ _No_.”

“Cecil. Seriously. Who cares? We’re on the radio.”

“Not with an attitude like that we won’t be!”

“Graduated cylinder?”

“As long as it’s big and the volunteers can see and read it across the room.”

 

**Hour Five:**

**Donations - $900.03 of (Amount censored by FCC)**

 

“ _So you’ve received the Scarlet Envelope!_ Ask a Scout Master. Children’s Fun Fact Corner Survival Edition with special guest, Earl Harlan.”

 

“You changed my schedule.” Cecil frowned looking at the working roster on Carlos’s ink board.  He glanced down at his watch. The Weather segment playing had two more minutes of air…

“Yeah, I know. But I think you’re benching Kevin too much. He wants to really help, and moderating a Q and A for Earl is a cake walk.” Carlos shrugged and busied himself sketching out a table for the next block of programming. But Cecil caught him casting a look towards the chef, who in full Scout Master regalia was being fitted for a mic. 

His eyes narrowed. “I see…”

“Look how happy he is.” Carlos gestured with his eraser to Kevin, who was already seated at his mic and pouring water for his guest. Carlos smiled and gave him a thumbs up and Kevin, eager as a puppy, waved and returned it. “Let him have this.”

“Right. For Kevin.” Cecil’s mouth crooked.

Carlos chanced a quick look at Cecil and got caught. He huffed a sheepish laugh.

“You know that uniform does nothing for me.” Cecil smirked. “You’re lucky a little jealousy is cute on you.”

 

**Hour Six**

**Donations - $2308.03 of (Amount NSFW)**

 

 ****“Listeners,Scout Master Harlan has generously agreed to extend his time with us to answer your questions. Isn’t that wonderful? Earl, we had no idea how popular sharing your knowledge of the desert would be! Shall we take another call?”

“You bet, Kevin.”

“Caller? Are you there?”

“Yes, uh, I want to know how you tell the difference between a cricket bear and a spider wolf den?”

“Sure. It’s very simple. The cricket bear likes to den exclusively in the vicinity of small owl burrows. Now those can be actual burrow owls, or they can be western elf owls that nest in cactus…”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Outside Discovery Hall, Kevin’s light earnest voice, a counterpoint to Earl Harlan’s deeper plain spoken one, carried on silent radio waves, to emerge from passing car dash boards, dusty short waves in workshop garages, or from glossy stereo receivers in living rooms. Across the desert the waves carried, shivering ectoplasm in the ethereal human manifestations of Pine Cliffs, traced across the avian tympanic membrane of turkey vultures circling Red Mesa and shivering up the spine of something in Desert Bluffs that snapped open its black empty eyes in recognition.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

**Hour Eight**

**Donations - $5652.03 of (Amount awaiting bit coin conversion)**

 

On the far window sill behind the main tables, sat five different colored phones, but all that could be seen of Hiram McDaniels was a wall of scales and a massive slitted yellow eye peeking into Discovery Hall.

“PLEDGE PUNY HUMANS OR KNOW THE SCORCHING HEAT OF MY IMPATIENT WRATH!”

“Now now, you’ll get the next call green head.”

“W-w-what about me? I haven’t gotten a call yet and I don’t howl or threaten anyone!”

“I hear what you’re saying, violet, and you’re right, you catch more flies with honey than, well, you know. But we’re working in a tight spot here and green is just ergonomically closer to the receiver…”

 

**Hour Nine**

**Donations - $8723.01 of (Amount scribbled down and slid across the table to Cecil who bites his lip while reading it…)**

 

Everything seemed to be going swimmingly as far as Kevin could tell. Coming up with patter when he covered his time slots was easy, natural, and he wondered if Cecil would put him on longer to give himself bigger breaks if he needed them. He’d told Kevin that his plan was to save many of the pre recorded bits for the wee hours when they would be more tired and there would be fewer listening ears. Very smart.

He’d missed this: being useful, contributing and working as part of a team. There was something familiar and reassuring about the feelings it stirred, even among strangers.

It had been a while since Kevin had been around so many people, but despite feeling shy, he was encouraged by the community atmosphere and decided to circulate a little, the way Cecil checked in with the crew to keep the energy up.

He grabbed a small cooler from the break area and went through the phone bank tables offering bottled water to the volunteers.

Apparently it was Goth Day at Dark Owl Records, because the gang of employees from there were all dressed in black, looking anemic and dejected as they huddled sullenly around their silent phone.  They had taken a space in the corner and flipped off their desk light to create a little pool of dark to huddle in, making it easier for Kevin to make out their features.

“There’s three of you. Wouldn’t you prefer to fan out? You could each take a phone?”

They all shrugged. 

“One’s good.” A girl in severe white pancake makeup accepted a water and squinted at Kevin.  “Besides, sounds like that might make the lizard over there loose it.”

Kevin followed her gaze towards Hiram’s window. “I see your point. You don’t look happy to be here?”

She tilted her head, still staring at Kevin, managing somehow to look both intrigued and bored at the same time. “Michelle made us come because Palmer promised to mention the shop during the broadcast.”

“Oh.”

“Who did your facial piercing?”

“Um, they’re scars actually.”

“Righteous.” The girl smiled nodding and put a fist out for Kevin to bump.

He returned the grin and tapped her knuckles “I’m doing a share of the sponsorship spots. Would you like me to read your Dark Owl copy?”

“ _Hell’s yes_.”

 

**Hour Ten**

**Donations - $9063.05 of (Amount temporarily converted to yen for tax purposes)**

 

 ****“I really think you need to swap her for later. This is still prime listening time.”

“Which is precisely why I slated her for this spot. There’s so much of her experience she can share!”

Kevin watched Carlos and Cecil argue back and forth like a ping pong match while behind them, Trish Hidge prepared the area for Ex Mayor Pamela Winchell. Presently, she was staple gunning some rainbow bunting to the broadcast table and sprinkling the floor with yucca blossoms and diet Mountain Dew.

As the pre-recorded sponsor spot wound down, and Cecil and Carlos continued to bicker, Kevin hurried over to Pam. “Mayor Winchell? Could I help with your mic?”

“Many souls are cleft in twain but grow back their severed parts like the tails of a lizard! None of us will be whole again!”

“How fascinating.” Kevin breathed.

Trish pulled a vintage RCA ribbon microphone and a spool of cord out of a grease stained Ralph’s bag and clunked it on the table. “She means we brought our own. Plug this in, would you?”

 

 

**Hour Twelve**

**Donations - $9972.01 of (Amount not accurately adjusted to reflect current inflation index.)**

 

People were beginning to seriously tire.

John Peters (you know, the farmer?) was taking a pledge, but there didn’t appear to be a receiver in his hand.

Carlos passed him looking confused. “Is he talking on imaginary corn?”

“Use the phone, John.” Cecil snapped.

 

**Hour Thirteen**

**Donations - $9972.05 of (Astronomical amount Station Management yanked out of their ass.)**

 

Tamika Flynn brandished a machete and a dog-eared copy of Dubliners at a silent phone. 

 

 

…The phone did not respond.

 

**Hour Eighteen**

**Donations - $9989.13 of (Amount > 9989.13.)**

 

Luckily it hadn’t happened on air but Carlos had watched two more episodes of Kevin’s twitching, blinking, unresponsive lapses while he mingled with the radio staff or talked to the scientist during segment breaks. Cecil was currently wrapping up introducing a retrospective of random industrial noises that had graced his show, punctuating his intro with another plea for the community to help support this programming. Kevin was slated to go up following it, but Carlos caught Cecil’s eye and signed to him, shaking his head and crossing Kevin’s name off the roster on the dry erase board.

Without pause, Cecil nodded and continued his delivery, watching Carlos seat Kevin on a couch near the pteranodon and prop his injured foot up. Looking back to the phone bank, he realized his line of sight had raised the curiosity of some of the volunteers, so he strode over and segued into introducing the Dark Owl Records staff to shift their attention away.

When he glanced over a few minutes later, Kevin was slumped on his side on the couch with Carlos’s lab coat tucked over him. He checked the counter for his industrial noise segment, which told him he had a few minutes. Flipping off the mic, he hurried over.

“He’s okay?”

“Yeah. But this is a lot. I think he’s wiped out. You’ve got this, right?”

Cecil nodded. “Of course.” He cast an anxious frown at Kevin.

“Less than six hours.” Carlos told him. “He’ll have a nap and then we can all go home. It’s okay.”

 

**Hour Twenty-Two**

**Donations - $ Not nearly enough.**

 

For the past three hours, NVCR had been exactly <redacted> dollars from their final pledge goal. An amount that, to Cecil, was incomprehensibly larger than the five dollars it took to procure a taco lunch at Jerry’s.

Carlos watched him closely. The longer the shortfall existed, the more Cecil looked frazzled and frantic.  Sure, he had a perpetual smile on his face, same as the beginning of the drive, while he checked in with the volunteers and played cheerleader… But the closer the clock ticked to midnight, the more the scientist saw Cecil’s eyes flash on its hands and the corner of his mouth twitch.

During the last break as Cecil swapped duties with intern Maureen (Maureen conducting what was originally to be Kevin’s fascinating interview with Sarah Sultan over the new RTF program the community college wanted to join with NVCR.) Carlos grabbed his boyfriend’s elbow. “You do know that on these things, at the eleventh hour, donors tend to come out of the woodwork, right? It’s all the excitement of racing to beat the clock.”

“We do not know that! Every year before, we got our budget goal during a single program. It’s never been like this,” Cecil hissed. “How will I support us if our funding is cut?” He continued, voice shooting up and becoming almost squeaky. “And now with Kevin— oh god. I can’t think about it. How could station management think we’d make our goals with just the same old bloodstone paperweights and coffee mugs?”

Carlos tried not to laugh, and instead put an arm around Cecil’s shoulders. It hadn’t escaped him that he’d mentioned Kevin as part of his household responsibility, which amused the scientist even more. Knowing Night Vale, adopting a grown man was probably as normal as surgically attaching one in place of your missing body. “Cecil. Relax. Look, the call volume’s picking up.” 

He pointed to the bank of volunteers where each of the Dark Owl employees was forced to answer a ringing phone. Cecil studied this and nodded, still tight-lipped and tense.

 

With the surge in last minute donors, Carlos was sucked back into his own duties, adding to the running total and keeping the white board up to the minute, too busy to worry about the goal. In his pocket, his phone vibrated.

Damn. Rachelle again. He’d forgotten to call her back…  He looked at the clock, debating his options when a runner dropped another sheaf of pledge forms to tabulate on his table. And then he very clearly heard his boyfriend’s voice answering a pledge call during the Weather…

 

“Cecil!” Carlos snapped. “You may not promise interns in exchange for pledges!” The scientist reached to grab his boyfriend’s phone, but the radio host twisted and held it away behind his back.

“But we are soooo close to our goal and besides, Maureen, you haven’t really been happy here in a while…”

Maureen, who had been taking calls as well, rolled her eyes and huffed. “Good catch, Gershwin. Real sharp eye there.”

“Either way, you can’t.”

“Who’s the pledge from?” Maureen eyed the phone.

Cecil put his hand over the receiver. “Big Rico.”

“Could be worse.” She shrugged, “Do it. I can slice pepperoni.”

“Ha!” Cecil crowed. While he returned to the call, Carlos looked at Maureen and started to say something but—

“What’s his problem?” She sniffed, just noticing Kevin, and crossed her arms.

The scientist followed her gaze, surprised to find him woken up and now watching Maureen with a stiff back and huge eyes. “Kevin?”

He blinked at Carlos’s voice and looked back and forth between them. “Oh! I’m so sorry. I just thought there was something familiar about you. How rude of me. I-I didn’t mean to stare.”

The redhead considered him a moment, softening. “Meh, don’t sweat it.” She narrowed her eyes at Carlos as she shouldered her bag. “See the manners on this one, Mr. Perfect? You might consider an upgrade.” She jerked her head at Cecil and drew a finger across her throat. “I’m gonna go say hi to Rico before they close up.”

 

**Hour Twenty Three and Fifty-five minutes**

**(Don’t even ask how far away from their goal)**

 

Apparently Old Woman Josie, the last volunteer who was still awake (besides Erika, Erika and Erika) got a big pledge on her last call. Which was really weird, because the phone didn’t even ring. Erika just smiled, picked up the receiver and offered it to Josie, who took it. After listening a moment, she hopped up and clanged her cow bell, jolting everyone dozing around her awake, while the Erikas smiled and did polite little golf claps. 

Lifting his head from his desk, Cecil hurried over.

He took one look down at her note pad and dissolved into tears. 

“I cannot acknowledge or believe in the existence of this pledger, but a heart felt thank you to the Vanston estate!”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

On the weary drive home, Carlos called and left a voice mail for Rachelle. She was probably still in bed, it being early Sunday. He was too sleep deprived to do much more than that and watch that Cecil stayed on the road for the short trip back to the apartment.

At home, all three staggered in and Carlos herded Cecil and Kevin into the bedroom, helping them out of jackets and ties and tugging their shoes off. Cecil sank into his pillows, blinking bleary eyes, but with a pleased, relieved smile. Kevin simply curled up where he fell beside him.

Closing the blinds and curtains against the morning sun, Carlos poured Cecil a small celebratory drink of Armagnac and kissed him. Then he kicked his own shoes off, stretched out on Cecil’s other side and tugged the comforter over them all. In moments both the scientist and Kevin were asleep.  

Cecil smiled down at them as he polished off his brandy, then set the glass on the headboard and nestled in to join them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be crazy busy for the next few weeks, so it may be a bit before I can post more. (Or I may only be able to post a shorty chapter in the meantime.) I hope you'll bear with me.
> 
> Oh, and Cecil wants to know if you have suggestions on segments for next years pledge drive? (I'm easier. I just want to know if you're still liking this. :))


	16. The Museum of Forbidden Technology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winding down from the pledge drive, Kevin does a little exploring in the neighborhood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're the sort that *really* needs resolution, maybe bank this chapter until I'm able to get Ch 17 up. But hey, if you're that sort, the regular podcast is probably driving you buggy right about now. Right?

 

 

“Can I walk you to work?” It was Monday just after noon, and Kevin held up the new lighter-weight glasses Carlos had completed that morning, experimentally holding them at different distances to the closest Christmas strand. “It’d be good to try these out and see the neighborhood.”

Cecil looked up from checking his email with a smile. “I’d like that.” 

 

“That’s the Children’s Museum, down there, right?” Kevin craned his neck at the corner of Earl and 1st Street, leaning out from Cecil’s arm as he spotted a familiar landmark. The success of the pledge drive and meeting some of Cecil and Carlos’s friends at the White Sands had certainly boosted his confidence. As had Cecil stopping in the hardware store and making Kevin his very own copy of their apartment key. While the radio host had some misgivings about leaving Kevin alone, he thought Carlos might be right in what he’d pointed out at the pledge drive— that he was treating him with kid gloves, like he was too delicate. Some autonomy would be good for him.

“Yep. It’s the whole museum area. And if you follow Earl Road down that way, you’ll pass Lucy and Hannah’s, and Rico’s and Carlos’s lab is right across the street.”

“Oh. I wouldn’t want to bother him at work.”

“He wouldn’t mind.” Cecil fished in his pocket. “But here.  If you want to explore for a bit, take my phone. I texted Carlos, and he can pick you up from wherever you are if you get tired. Or you can come back to the station — I signed you in, so one of the interns can show you to my booth if I’m on air.”

“I could see you finish your show?”

Cecil laughed. “If you want to. I thought you could hang out and Carlos could grab you for dinner. Up to you.” He watched Kevin panning his head around eagerly in the bright desert afternoon sun, as if the quiet dusty small town streets held immanent adventure rather than neighbors putting out their trash cans or toting home groceries from the Ralph’s. “Is this okay? Are you alright on your own?”

Kevin beamed at him. “I’m fine.”

“Oh, and here…” Grabbing Kevin’s hand with the phone, he pressed a couple bills into it. “You should have a little walking around money.” Before Kevin could protest, Cecil kissed his cheek. “Have fun.”

 

After a circuit of Earl Road, where he got a soda at the White Sands then peered in the window of Dark Owl Records hoping to spy the ashen-faced goth girl he’d met at the pledge drive, Kevin mulled over his options.  He didn’t want to trouble Carlos, and he wasn’t hungry, so Rico’s held little interest, and also there was the possibility of running into that girl he’d stared at so rudely… But museums? What others were there besides the Children’s Museum?

 

“Admission is half-price on Mondays and the adult admission includes all our galleries, you know, the Hall of Time Travel technology, replicas of the sound stage used in the moon mission hoax, our wax museum of theoretical physicists…” The docent manning the entrance to the Museum of Forbidden Technologies rattled off half a dozen highlights, counting on her fingers. “And of course, our newest permanent exhibit about the revolution and two obligatory drink tickets to cover your two drink minimum…”

“Oh, gosh. That sound great.” The lobby was a little dark with his glasses still on, but Kevin managed to fish out the appropriate amount and the docent pinned a little admission badge stamped with the museum’s logo to his collar.

“If you hurry, a tour just started — the one covering the revolution — right down there.” She pointed him past a velvet rope down a dim hall of draped picture windows.

“Thank you!” Kevin called. He was better with his crutch now and swung it to take long loping strides to catch up to the small group that had gathered in a far gallery before several covered dioramas.   Hanging back and leaning on his crutch, Kevin took his glasses off and blinked experimentally.  The museum was not well lit, which was to his advantage, and although he couldn’t make out what was on the interpretive plaques or wall signs (if he had been able to, he would have found that everything beyond the titles were all blacked out and redacted anyway) he could see well enough to navigate the group and halls without bumping into anyone or anything.  Also, the heavy burlap draperies and curtains looked like they covered some pretty large pieces of equipment, so he figured they’d be easy to make out once they were revealed.  He smiled and shuffled in a little closer so he could hear the museum employee who was introducing herself…

 

Their guide stood in front of several draped displays, one of which was the shape of a small bell jar on a pedestal. “Our newest exhibition outlines the history of the StrexCorp takeover, how our neighboring community Desert Bluffs was selected as a research template for small town structure to allow Strex to strategize their targets in Night Vale and how it’s top people were tools in killing so many citizens of Night Vale, and how the use of hive minded devices allowed them to control these people. The information you're going to learn today is cutting edge intelligence we have from the Sheriff's Secret Police, who feel it's important for our citizens to now know fully how fortunate they are.”

Kevin felt a cold shiver go up his spine. He looked back over his shoulder to the entrance and escape, but he couldn’t tear himself away. The museum was here for the community. It would simply present the facts — perhaps some Cecil or Carlos couldn’t bring themselves to explain. He swallowed and leaned in.

“Electrocution, and even some more eco-conscious methods such as evisceration and a medieval technique where victims were pressed with heavy stones were employed by Strex to subjugate dissenters in Night Vale.  We are lucky to still have our Voice, an assistant to the revolution, Cecil Palmer, who was fortunate enough to escape the Company Picnic through means we are not able to know of or speak about and were definitely not as divine as the lovely baritone he uses to bring us the news each day…”

 The docent looked thoughtfully at the draped bell jar shape, but made no move to uncover it. Her gaze panned back over her audience and Kevin realized he’d been holding his breath in anticipation.

“Whether the devices were designed by human engineers for Strex or whether they represent a self-organizing form of artificial intelligence’s first foray into conquest of the organic world — or perhaps some combination of the two, is all really really complicated and scary information, and best left to the vague yet menacing government agency and the Sheriff’s Secret Police, currently in possession of the research materials and evidence. We’ll be providing complimentary Jager shots and Mind Erasers in the gift shop bar for anyone who’d like to start their forgetting early.”

She smiled back at the group and her eyes fell on Kevin. “Oh look, we have one of those drones with us today — I’m sure you’ll recognize this voice — won’t you say something for our visitors, Kevin?”

He stepped back, aware of the guests, only dark shapes in his vision, now turning towards him. “I-I’m sorry? What?”

“Visitors, Kevin here, in his employment as a Strex propaganda and terrorism drone was singlehandedly responsible for eliminating more citizens than all the freak and tragic accidents befalling the NVCR internship program in the last three years. I’m sure the visitors would love to hear a first hand account of your use of the evisceration technique if you have time, Kevin.”

 

…………………………………………………………..

 

“Why would I do those things?!” Kevin wailed. His hands seized fistfuls of his hair, before searching and clawing at the scar at the base of his skull.

They’d gotten him back to the apartment with, Carlos felt was fortunate, Cecil unloading a minimum of choice words to the museum staff…

Carlos caught his wrists and wrested his hands out to either side, holding them away from his head, his body, before he could injure himself. Kevin struggled, gasping, eyes rammed shut. “You were a puppet.” Carlos told him. “I can show you threads of the device, going into your motor functions…” 

“Hush.” Cecil told him, and Carlos wasn’t sure if this was for him or Kevin. “You didn’t do those things. _You_ didn’t.” He pressed Carlos’s arms down, guiding them gently to lower Kevin’s hands into his lap. “Kevin? Try to breath… You’re safe here.” Carlos watched as Cecil slipped between them, now on the couch at Kevin’s side, now with arms around him while he coached him through slowing counting his breaths in… then out…  talking him through the panic. “Can you put your hand here? That’s it. Focus on your chest rising and falling as you breath. Feel that? We want to make it even and deep…”

 

Kevin’s eyes were glued to Cecil and he followed along, working to match the instructions, to do the exercises, but his breath continued to hitch and he would gasp again to counter it. Carlos took his wrist and and checked his pulse, frowning.

“What is it?” Cecil breathed, eyes flashing to Carlos.

“Kevin?” The scientist asked.

Looking down, Cecil saw Kevin’s head tipped back, his back stiff and his eyes fluttering. “Kevin!” He blurted, gripping his shoulders and patting a hand on his cheek trying to get a response. “Can you hear me?”

Carlos was already dialing 911.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't kill me!  
> I'm still crazy busy right now and didn't think I'd be able to get to another chapter this soon -- but this one was mostly written, and I'd like to at least try to not let this languish too long between updates, so I was able to do the remaining writing on it tonight and post.  
> The next chapter will take much bigger chunks of new work to complete though, so it may be a bit of a wait.  
> Comments are always always welcome -- in fact, if you could take a field trip to Night Vale, where would you most want to visit? (I've totally ruled out their Museum district.)


	17. The Limitations of Science and Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear god the angst... So very much angst...  
> I feel I should apologize for  
> all  
> the  
> angst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But there's also plot type stuff and if you survive the angst, you get bonus scene feathery angst.  
> Sorry, I started pushing to finish a chapter, that ended up being pushing to post it and now it's 2 am and I'm a little stooooopid...

Here’s the thing of it:

Carlos had heard Rachelle’s voice mails. The urgent tone to her voice. The directive he _needed_ to call Evan because he had heard something really weird. Something potentially very, very bad, but Evan didn’t want to assume or guess.  It was snippets of a conversation and so hard to make out… Carlos should hear the recording of the intel himself. Maybe it was nothing? Rachelle really hoped it was nothing.

But some part of Carlos’s brain blanked on it. 

Decided it was minor - a detail. A symptom, a glitch. He’d behaved reasonably. Stuck to a routine. He’d called Rachelle back, left a message, then went into the lab Monday early and finished Kevin’s glasses before the team arrived, and took them home to see how they fit…

 

Carlos lifted his head from his hands and looked around the hospital hallway, unable to focus on anything.  Everything had been slowly, steadily moving towards this. Evan and Amir’s theories… The broken threads on the CAT scans and all those knife blade peaks and valleys where the needle had jumped on the EEG. 

But for some reason, he’d looked at each of those things as unique phenomena, noted them, but didn’t put the big picture together.  Why?

Snatches of the dialogs with his team came back to him: refusing invasive tests, snapping at Amir or Evan when they suggested collecting samples.

It was textbook denial. Avoidance.

He swallowed, realizing that he was seeing Cecil’s form pace back and forth down the length of the hall, blurry.

This wasn’t happening.

“I’m so sorry.” Carlos stood up, surprised that he felt so shaky.

Cecil was looking at him, his eyes round with surprise. “Carlos?”

“I’m so sorry, Cecil!” Carlos blurted, and suddenly he was sobbing, quaking, burying his wet face in both arms like a child hiding.

Cecil grabbed him and sat him back on the vinyl waiting room bench, hiding his shock reasonably well and slipping his thin arms around him tight. “Shhh. Shh.”

It only made his sobs worse, wracking his broad shoulders, and Cecil could feel each gasp as the scientist sucked in a tremulous breath, his muscles and bent spine heaving. “I should have put it together. I-I didn’t ask the right questions. And before, before… Doug sort of thought it was funny, but then he got mad, because I told him — I told him what he’d done and—“ Carlos was babbling. “—when he couldn’t remember anything, I played with that. It was petty, and he didn’t even know it, he didn’t know I wasn’t his friend and I didn’t want to bring him back from there but I didn’t want to leave him with Doug and Alicia who’d been so good to me… Oh god C-c-cecil. And it was always like looking at you—“  He pressed his face deeper against Cecil, muffling a keening wail.

The radio host hugged him harder and held firm. “You didn’t know. He didn’t know. My poor Carlos.” He murmured.  There was only one time before when he’d seen him so shaken, scared to lose something. He’d gotten used to confident Carlos man of science that he’d forgotten how sometimes things mattered, really mattered, and Carlos could crumble like everyone else, when science failed him.  Oddly enough, more words were hard to come by for Cecil like this. It seemed vital that what he say right now be 100% true and he picked his words with care. “You didn’t know.” He repeated, hands cupped and gripped around each shoulder. “And right now, you and I? We don’t know everything.  Let’s wait and see what the doctor says. Okay?” It wasn’t eloquent or much, but then he felt Carlos nod into his shoulder, willing to take a little respite from fear, an offered scrap of hope. “I love you so much…” Cecil whispered and squeezed him tighter.

 

It was some time later, an eternity later, that someone emerged to speak with them. Carlos wrung out, exhausted, had been able to wash his face and straighten himself up, but he clung to Cecil’s hand and his brown eyes flashed to Cecil’s before they followed a neurologist into a small room off the hall.  

“Can we see him?” Cecil asked immediately. “He didn’t seize again did he?”  Cecil’s eyes flashed over the room, noting that a black clad Sheriff’s Secret Police Officer had followed them in to stand silently by the door. Cecil didn’t care, and he looked back at the neurologist.

The doctor shook his head. “No, no. That stayed under control with the medication. We’re tapering it off to a maintenance dose —“

“Then you can manage it? Like epilepsy?” Carlos blurted.

The neurologist pursed his lips. “Not like epilepsy.” He said curtly, then softened his voice. “I need to show you this.” He turned on a monitor to display an array of imaging from MRI scans.

Both Cecil and Carlos’s faces fell.

“I need to call Amir. And Evan.” Carlos fumbled his phone out, dropping and catching it. “This fits his theory about the device—“

Cecil took the phone away, still staring in mute horror at the illuminated scans.

Where before the x-rays and scans of Kevin’s neck and head showed a fine connected spiderweb of silver implanted tracery, the network now was broken dashes as choppy as transcribed morse code. “It’s like it’s dissolving…” Cecil breathed. “Why?”

“Couldn’t say.  At this stage, removing some of the remaining material might solidify what it is, but that wouldn’t necessarily help us halt the breakdown.”

“But you could try?” Cecil was nodding, as though unconsciously signaling the doctor to agree.

“If he grants permission.” He frowned. “I don’t want to give you false hope. Areas here and here are crucial to the autonomic nervous system.” He pointed to a part of the tracery very close to one of the stuttered sections.  “Heart and lungs… Once it gets to these regions…. Well, on his own it would mean a couple of days. Here with a ventilator, it might give him a little more time.”

“So how long is that? How long until it gets to his heart?” Cecil demanded.

“We don’t know if the deterioration happens in bursts or at a steady rate. It could be a week, or it could be a few days.”

 

 

“Carlos thought that material was metal wire of some sort, but I’m sure the bug was manufacturing it.” Amir crammed a series of quarters into the vending machine then hip bumped it so it dropped two bags of Fritos.  “I mean that fits. The device has to be portable, and based on how it would lose power away from a potential host, it seems it was drawing energy from the host too — so maybe it also is harvesting and combining raw materials within the host for colonization purposes. It could even be recycling parts of its own body - at a certain point the device could become so fully integrated, it would appear absorbed, maybe even be undetectable.”

Cecil looked up from where he and Carlos had Amir’s laptop open, and Carlos was examining a list of theoretical chemical recipes for organic human compounds to become conductors, fibers, a different form of mechanical neural path. He swallowed, glancing to the Sheriff’s Secret Police Officer, who was standing an immobile sentry in black by the edge of the hospital waiting area, and back to Carlos.

“You’re talking like it’s still in him. That’s the issue, isn’t it? I pulled it out.”

Around a mouthful of corn chip, Amir signed ‘on the nose’ at Carlos and managed to swallow. “Right.  So there’s no road crew in there for highway maintenance, and the asphalt’s breaking up and the pot holes are taking over.”

“You’ve such a way with words.” Cecil sniffed.

“So what Evan heard—“

Carlos kicked Amir’s shin and cut his eyes to the sentry. “We both know about the mortality rate.” He hissed.

“Mr Palmer?” The SSPO turned to them.

Cecil flinched, and began to stammer, “This is all just theory of course. That’s what scientists do — theorize. Not eavesdrop. That’s your job!”

The Officer cocked their head and touched a gloved hand to their earpiece, which was obviously feeding them instructions. “I’m being told he’s awake. I can walk you upstairs now.”

 

 

As they rode up in the elevator, random thoughts occurred to Carlos: 

It had been almost fourteen hours since EMS had rushed Kevin back to Night Vale General.

The SSPOs even wore their visors and face masks indoors. Were they damp and smelly with stale breath like a motorcycle helmet? Why didn’t it look more surreal to see someone in flack gear press a floor button in an elevator amid the Muzak-ed strains of “White Wing Dove”?

His hands were shaking and his stomach felt like he’d swallowed a thick block of twigs frozen in ice.

At the door, Carlos laced his fingers tighter into Cecil’s, for some reason afraid, but when the officer pushed it open, he entered without hesitation.

And felt relieved.

The room’s lights were dimmed making a warm rosy twilight similar to Cecil’s Christmas strands, and Kevin was blinking and beaming at them wearily from behind an oxygen mask. For once, to Carlos’s eyes, he wasn’t Cecil, nor Cecil’s double, or first and foremost an eerie resemblance he had to see past. 

He was Kevin.  

His hair was lighter than Cecil’s. His skin darker. The line of their noses was different, and there were so many little variations in the shape of the eyes… Why hadn’t Carlos noticed before?

A nurse sitting beside the bed stood up. “The medication makes him pretty groggy, but he’s been asking for you.”

“Should he sleep?” Cecil asked anxiously.

The nurse shook her head. “It’s just a side effect I wanted to warn you about. But he may doze off on you until they lower it to the maintenance dose.”

Carlos was already beside the bed, kissing Kevin’s cheek up above where the oxygen mask rested and finding his hand to hold. “You scared us so bad.” He grinned. “Look at this room. You’d think Cecil had already been at the lights in here.”

Kevin’s smile broadened and he squeezed Carlos’s fingers weakly. “Carlos…”

“I’m right here. Cecil’s here too. How’re you feeling?”

“Okay. Really sleepy.”

“That means they’ve got you on the good drugs again.”

Kevin giggled, turning his head into the pillow.

Cecil had joined them, also kissing Kevin’s cheek in greeting and stroking his hair. 

“I bet your foot feels pretty alright about now too.” Carlos kept teasing.

For some reason this was super funny. “I forgot all about my silly foot.” Kevin snickered, breathless.

“I bet you did.” Carlos nuzzled him playfully. “Like I said, the really good drugs.”

“Stop it.” Cecil smiled. “For Pete’s sake, he’s on oxygen. You’ll make him hyperventilate.” He lifted the mask until Kevin caught his breath and stopped wheezing, then settled it back. “That’s better.” He began to gently rake the hair along Kevin’s temple with his fingers in soothing strokes. Kevin blinked off the light-headedness and relaxed under Cecil’s hand, but he cut a hopeful mischievous look at the scientist and grinned. 

Carlos winked and tugged a chair over so Cecil could sit, then found another for himself. Pulling it bedside, Carlos noticed that the silent SSPO had stepped in the room behind them and been standing stationed at the door all this time.  What did it matter now? He ignored them and sat and slipped his hand around Kevin’s again.

“Cecil?”

“Hmm?”

“Talk to me again?”

“Of course.  They didn’t tell Carlos and I very much about how you were doing during the tests. Were you awake?”

Kevin shook his head and yawned. “I don’t remember.  I must not have been. You said everyone has hiccups though Cecil…” Kevin got quiet. “The doctor told me this isn’t a hiccup.”

“No. It’s not. You don’t get the good drugs for a hiccup.” Cecil told him calmly. “And we were very worried when they wouldn’t let us see you.” Cecil drew the blankets up and tucked them around Kevin’s shoulders the way he liked, pleased to see him let his eyes close and look relaxed and comfortable.

“How long was that?” Kevin wondered.

“Hours and hours.”

“We were worried you’d be afraid if you were alone so long.” Carlos told him.

Kevin’s voice was drowsy. “I wasn’t alone. Vanessa stayed with me.”

 

 

>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Kevin had been asleep for about an hour, but neither Carlos or Cecil had any thought of leaving. Carlos, more worn out, had even leaned forward on the edge of the bed, laying his head on folded arms and closing his eyes. Both of them had met each other gaze and cut their eyes curiously at the SSPO; a silent conference that they both were aware of the sentry.

After the over night attendant changed Kevin’s IV and left, Cecil heard the officer’s boot fall and the soft click of the door being shut. He lifted his head and reached over Kevin to prod Carlos.

The scientist lifted his head, groggy, until he followed Cecil’s look to the officer now striding across the room and plucking numerous button-size audio bugs from under the meal tray, the window sill and the heart monitor, before stepping into the bathroom with them. Suddenly alert, Carlos heard the toilet flush and watched the officer emerge.

Neither he or Cecil moved or spoke.

Standing in front of them, the SSPO began unplugging their ear piece, then its receiver, lifted a cell phone like device and shucked the battery out of it and finally placed all the surveillance and communication devices in a pile on the meal tray. They unbuckled their chinstrap and removed their helmet, visor and face guard, until Cecil and Carlos were staring into the lined and weary face of an ordinary middle-aged woman.

Carlos swallowed, reminding himself that this was not how the Sheriff’s Secret Police would be behaving if they knew about Evan's reverse surveillance. That would involve batons and handcuffs. Don’t panic.

Cecil however was following the woman’s gaze as she looked at Kevin and he waited a moment before he spoke. “Hello Miss, um. Officer? Do you know Kevin?” He began softly.

She shook her head biting her bottom lip and her sad look took on a hard angry tinge. “No.”

Cecil slowly stood, placing himself between Kevin and the woman, and Carlos realized he thought she was possibly the relative of one of Strex’s victims: one of Kevin’s victims.

“I’ve seen this. I took my own husband into custody under orders — he was one of the first hired in Strex’s office division here. They held him a couple days and then with no explanation, they let me take him home.” Her expression was iron. “It was classified, so we thought, this is great. He’s been debriefed, absolved of his association with Strex. He even suggested he might take a few months off before looking for another job, and after how hard he worked before, I thought that sounded perfect, healthy.”

“He had a bug.” Carlos said.

She bit her lip and nodded. “It escaped. He needed it, and it up and crawled away.  They all did — I found out later — they all slid out of everyone and vanished, slipped out of security, the holding cells, like crafty little roaches. And this is the same thing I watched happen to him, only I didn’t even know why at the time.  I’ve stayed on the force listening and piecing it together.” Her eyes softened a little, looking from Carlos to Cecil. “They have to have them. Once they’re in there, they’re changed permanently. Without the device to perpetually maintain neural pathways and electrical impulses…  It’s just like cell regeneration in a live body, without it, the host dies.”

Cecil nodded. “Thank you for telling us.”

“I don’t know if it’s too late, or if there’s any chance of getting it out, but I’ve seen his bug. It’s damaged, but still active. They know the host has to have it, but after the others escaped, all they care about is isolation and containment so they can try to study it.”

“Do you have access to it?” Carlos stood up.

She shook her head. “It was in evidence and then transferred to a more secure research floor.”

 >>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Kevin woke slowly, still wrapped in the warm sleepy fugue of the anti seizure medication. He could hear Cecil and Carlos talking in hushed voices and smiled, simply recognizing and being reassured by the sound.  As he became more alert, phrases filtered in and began to make sense.

“…The SSP officer said she might have a shot at liberating it, but that’s doubtful. If what the doctor believes is true, Kevin has only a few days left.”

“There has to be something we could do. Plead with the SSPO? I don’t care about reeducation.”

“I don’t either, but what if that means we give our inside person away? Or we get arrested and separated from him in the last few days he has? I want to think about what he wants.”

Kevin stretched and blinked and yawned, smiling at Cecil and Carlos when they looked at him wide-eyed, startled he was awake.

“Kevin, I’m sorry. Were we too loud? Did we wake you up?” Cecil asked.

He shook his head. “No. I was listening.”

“Oh?” Cecil blinked.

Kevin nodded. “Even if she retrieved the bug… And Carlos put it back. …Wouldn’t I become a monster again?”

Cecil froze, but Carlos jumped in. “Not necessarily.”

“But you don’t know.  And either way, it probably won’t happen. Not if I only have a few days… Please…” Kevin looked down.

“What is it?”

“You’ve mentioned it before. I want to go to Jacob’s turbines and to Desert Bluffs. Please. I want to go home.”

 

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

 

 

Carlos surveyed the activity outside the Opera House construction site, trying to make up his mind. It was after noon and it looked like the crews were working in shifts broken up by frequent breaks to get out of the heat. This arrangement put no lull in the construction though; there were still workers with welding torches  joining rebar, and another group was pouring a section of foundation while still more were transporting marble slabs and pallets of brick.

Several yards out from where the entrance was taking shape, Carlos spotted Marcus discussing something with one of the foremen. The angel wore his StrexCorp hard hat and his enormous gold wings were held up and spread, but cupped over, providing an umbrella of shade to several people around him: Josie sat in a lawn chair mopping her brow and digging into a brown bag lunch, and several other workers were on a spread blanket on Marcus’s other side taking this opportunity to shed their hard hats and slick back their sweaty hair.  Marcus seemed fully focused on whatever he and the foreman were talking over, but at the same time, Carlos could see the wings pump the air slightly, just enough to fan a light breeze on those around him. 

Maybe doing that was second nature, the scientist mused. Part of being Erika.

He waved to Josie when she spotted him, and the sad look she gave him told him that Cecil had already unloaded to her, probably in one of their marathon phone calls… She gestured to the blanket beside her and held up a jug of iced tea, but Carlos shook his head, glancing at Marcus meaningfully. He waited until the angel finished his conversation with the crew leader before he approached.

For a moment, even in the Armani jacket butchered to admit his wings, the vision that was Marcus Vanston made Carlos’s lapsed Catholic insides tremble. He was magnificent, like an old master’s marble sculpture in the blistering sun, seven feet of imposing radiance with seven pairs of eyes that were both terrible and round with sympathy as his gaze fell on the scientist… 

“Man…” The angel groaned and rubbed the back of his neck grimacing at Carlos. “Yeah, that sucks. I don’t even know man… That whole situation just sucks so much.”  

Carlos huffed a weak laugh despite himself. For once he was glad of Cecil’s blabbermouth blanketing town with their news. He didn’t have it in him to explain to anyone, and eloquent or not, the angel’s sympathy sounded heartfelt.

“Yeah. I wanted to ask you… I mean, I know it’s a moon shot, and I don’t really understand all this, but…” He paused, feeling a lump form in his throat again.  That seemed to be happening a lot lately.

Marcus fished in his jacket pocket. “Look, I explained about what information we were able to find on those things — I mean, it was nothing. I had Jake research it I don’t know how many times.”

“Right. No. I know.” Carlos nodded. “I wasn’t asking about Strex’s records. You gave us everything. I was—“ Carlos stopped, looking in Marcus’s hand at some keys.  He blinked.

“Josie said Palmer said your friend wanted to visit the wind turbine farm. Strex owns it. These will get you on the property and in any structures out there.  Tell him we plan to restart the project. We’ll finish the work.”  The angel tilted his head at the scientist frowning. “If it wasn’t the Strex records, then that’s what you wanted to ask about, isn’t it?”

Carlos swallowed and took the offered keys. “Well, yes, but there was something else…” His voice had become small, and he realized that Josie had picked up her lawn chair and was quietly shoo-ing the other construction crew members back to work and out of ear shot.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, but when I was little there were stories I heard about angels, and I didn’t believe, and I think technically as a rationalist and a scientist, I still don’t really believe or understand, but…” Carlos was babbling and looking at his sneakers, so he forced his head up to meet Marcus’s gaze. “…But they…  …They told stories about angels healing people?” He blurted the last bit, feeling hot tears streak down his cheeks.

“Oh man.” The look of deep sadness was all Carlos needed in answer.  Then he suddenly found long powerful arms enfolding him and his face pressed into expensive wool silk blend while all around him was tented and surrounded by the dark heavy rustle of enormous pinions. The angel was crushing the smaller man to his middle in a hug. “I told you this really sucks, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still crazy busy, but I AM trying to finish this (without rushing). I think there's two chapters left? Maybe only one long one. The end is in sight though.  
> Hope it's not too depressing at this point. Dammit Kevin. Why you gotta put me through so many changes??  
> Comments are the breath of life.  
> Also, full disclosure, I have not (cough cough) written slash... I probably could have avoided, er, I mean admirably acquitted my secret santa duties A LOT FASTER if I'd just written some fun gratuitous Cevinlos slash. (But noooo... I had to work out my Kevin phobia...haha) Would it be so horrible if I did that when I (finally!) wrap this up?


	18. The Wind Turbines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's sort of like Kevin's birthday.  
> Only the opposite?  
> Either way, Cecil and Carlos want to make him happy.
> 
> Oh, and there's angst. Sooooo much angst.

 

It was evening the next day.  Kevin breathed in the warm smell of french toast browning in the skillet and the sweet tang of berries cooking down into soft syrupy compote. Carlos was sitting beside him at the table, bumping shoulders and grinning that dazzling smile that turned Kevin’s insides into clouds of butterflies and molten pools of warm goo…

 

Earlier, as they negotiated the slow hospital discharge process —made slower by the legal hurdles to be satisfied in releasing someone who technically wasn’t stable and still needed care —  Cecil and Carlos had both told him he could have anything he wanted. Anything.

“Anything?” Kevin’s voice was barely audible as they escaped the lobby and found the car. “I-I-I—I mean, I don’t know…”

Carlos climbed into the back seat with him. “Start with dinner.  When we get home, what would you like for dinner?”

Cecil glanced in the rearview at them. “I can call Tourniquet if you like.”

“No. No.” Kevin blushed and shook. He was already tired and the anti seizure medicine made things seem fuzzy and far away — which he knew was sort of a blessing since it meant he couldn’t think too sharply about what was looming; about the reason Cecil and Carlos were offering to jump through any hoop to please him. It was hard to navigate being the center of attention in this state but feeling Carlos’s firm arms slip around him, he worked to focus and speak.

He wanted Cecil’s french toast.

And he wanted to stay in their room with them.

“Like after the pledge drive. All together,” he explained. “And…”

Cecil cocked his head. “And? I’ve taken off work. Vanston gave Carlos the wind farm keys for us. Tomorrow we’re going to take you where ever you’d like to go and do whatever you like.” Cecil peered at him hopefully in the little mirror.

Behind the thick glasses, Kevin looked from Cecil to Carlos, his cheeks burning red.

“So what’s your ‘and’?” Carlos hugged him close. “What else would you like?”

Again, his gaze flashed from one to the other, but finally Kevin leaned up to whisper in Carlos’s ear before hiding his face against the scientist’s neck.

From the mirror, Cecil watched this exchange with a look of intense concern, and seeing his eyes, Carlos couldn’t help but laugh.

“What? What is it?” Cecil burst.

Carlos leaned down and gently kissed Kevin’s temple, then his cheek, and finally, with a slow almost reverential tenderness, his lips. “Nothing we can’t handle.” He smiled as Kevin relaxed and rested his head on his shoulder.

 

So it was french toast and powdered sugar and berries, and both men sitting shoulder to shoulder with him as they all ate.

 

And after, both led him into the bedroom. Cecil sat him on the bed dropping little pecks on his cheek as he unbuttoned his shirt and guided him out of his shirt and pants, down to boxers. Carlos plumped the pillows and helped him lay down before he and Cecil undressed too.  Soon the three of them were stretched out among the blankets, Kevin ensconced in the middle with the pair pressed against him close and gentle on either side, arms twined over him, stroking his hair or held firm along his shoulders in the darkness, just a light sheet covering them.

Kevin tilted his head towards Cecil and huffed a little sigh. But Cecil was hesitant, only searching Kevin’s face with a sad small smile, then watching as he did the same unspoken gesture towards Carlos. 

“Do you hurt?” He whispered.

Kevin shook his head. “I… I…” He bit his lip. 

Carlos’s brown eyes caught Cecil’s, giving  a look of understanding, and he shifted over Kevin, nuzzling his cheek. Kevin tilted his head up and trembling, kissed the scientist’s jaw, and Cecil watched as Carlos gently bent down and placed his lips over Kevin’s. While Carlos pressed in, deepening the kiss, Cecil stroked his hands along Kevin’s chest, his shoulders, ran the smooth back of his fingers up the sides of his neck tenderly before cupping his scarred cheek.  When Carlos finally lifted away, the radio host moved in, threading his fingers into Kevin’s hair and feeling the other shudder beneath him as his lips parted and met his double’s.

Kevin sighed, relaxing into the pillows, eyes dropping shut, feeling both men, so warm with just skin on skin, pressed securely against him in their cocoon. He took in Cecil’s breath, warming to the hands caressing his chest, the arms down his ribs, then blinking momentarily as Cecil drew away to allow Carlos back. A little moan escaped him as Carlos pushed closer, more insistent and so pleasantly heavy, that Kevin rocked weakly against his hip.

But presently Cecil’s forehead dropped against Kevin’s cheek and he could feel the other man shivering. 

“What is it?”

“I _can’t_ …” He whimpered.

“Cecil?”

“If your heart stops… I couldn’t…”

“I’m okay.” Kevin murmured, soft voice barely a whisper. “But I understand.”

Carlos reached over and squeezed his partner’s shoulder, before settling on his side.  He nuzzled into Kevin’s cheek and hair, giving him small tickling kisses and playful nibbles to his ear until he laughed, then snugged his arms around him possessively with a comic growl and Kevin grinned, giggling and relaxing again. Cecil smiled at this, his eyes shinning with tears before he buried his face between Kevin’s neck and shoulder. The other let his head drop to rest his cheek on Cecil’s crown with a sigh.

 

>>>>>>><<<<<<<<

 

In the morning, Cecil could barely hold himself together. Carlos seemed to read it from his tense face in the way he bent a smile to his lips and kissed Kevin good morning. All of his partner’s energy was going into that smile and keeping his voice even.

“Your meds.” He reminded Kevin, reaching for the tablets on the bedside table. 

Kevin frowned a little. “They make me a little numb,” he murmured letting Cecil tap two pills into his hand.

“I’m sorry sweetheart. You don’t want a seizure today though.” He stroked his hair.

Downing them, Kevin nestled back against Cecil, now smiling, so pleased with where he was, so weirdly happy with their day’s plan. “It’s okay. You’ll get to see my station. And Jacob’s project on the mesa. It’s so beautiful up there. Since you have the keys Carlos, you maybe could even go inside one and see the machinery.”

Carlos scooted close enough to snug an arm over both of them, giving Cecil’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’d like that. I’ll drive today, okay?”

 

Behind the wheel, Carlos offered to turn up the radio for Kevin, showed him he’d plugged some of the glam rock titles he liked into his stream. “See, 21st Century Boy? And that early Bowie stuff…”

Kevin beamed and kissed his cheek as they rode, but he turned the music down in favor of pointing out land marks he could make out behind his glasses. “That’s Red Mesa back there isn’t it? I can see the shape, but not the color.  We’re almost past the Pine Cliff exit!”

Cecil smiled at his excitement, but then had to drop his head back on the seat and face the window.

“Will you know the gate?” Carlos asked, considering the empty dirt road only marked here and there with a few reflectors, ancient cattle guards and stenciled tin property numbers.

“Oh definitely. It’s next to the arroyo with the huge cholla cactus. You can see the first turbine blades just a little from it!” Kevin rocked on the seat in anticipation and Carlos grinned at him.

 

It was just as Kevin described, and as Carlos hopped out to unlock the gate, Cecil watched as Kevin craned his neck looking over the familiar landscape with delight.  It was a nice area. Breaking away from the monotony of dry tumbleweed, scrub and creosote, the foot of the mesa softened into sage, honey colored whip grass and even a few blossoming trees like palo verde.

“What’ll we see at the project site?” Cecil managed to ask quietly.

Kevin took his hand and leaned back as Carlos returned to the car. “I’m not sure what’ll still be there. I’m sure the first turbine is, but maybe their office trailers? Some equipment?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just want to see Jacob’s windmill.”

 

And the windmill was there. They saw the white arms and then the body of it as Carlos’s car climbed the rise. Before they reached it though, the dirt road widened into a cleared area packed down from equipment tire tread.  A portable trailer, spotted with either rust or red dirt sat backed up in the mesa’s shadow, its folding metal steps sprung out and door hanging off its hinges.

Kevin swallowed, his eagerness tempered as he recognized the abandoned structures.

“You okay?” Carlos asked, parking.

“Uh huh.” Kevin nodded. He tapped the window pointing. “That was his office.”

 

At the trailer door, Cecil held Kevin’s crutch and let him grip his shoulder for stability as he climbed the creaking steel steps. Once he was in, the radio host handed him the crutch and followed. He’d expected to find it tossed and wrecked, like a crime scene in a movie, but it was only dusty, and the detritus of survey maps on the walls, blueprints and other records were curled from heat and spotted and chewed by whatever creatures had scurried among them.

There were normal office things:  a desk, some bookshelves and file cabinets, a generator box, a fan and a small refrigerator.

And hanging over the back of a chair at the desk was a dark blue jacket.

“Oh.” 

Kevin hobbled over and  lifted the coat. It was just a plain windbreaker; the sort of thing uniform shops sold embroidered with worker’s names. But Cecil watched as Kevin’s hands scooped under the worn twill as though he were lifting a living thing, like cupping a small kitten in his hands.  As it draped over Kevin’s fingers, Cecil saw a rectangle patch over the breast pocket with Jacob’s full name stitched in white thread.

Kevin cradled it in his arms, stroking the fabric smooth and stealing a little sniff of the inner collar. He froze at this, unable to breathe, then buried his nose in it stifling a sob as he hunched over his crutch.

Cecil hesitated, unsure if he should approach or not. This was between Kevin and Jacob. He only wanted to interrupt if he was needed. If he had to.

After a moment though, Kevin straightened and seemed to survey the dim dusty trailer office with fresh eyes. “This won’t do. You don’t want to be in here.”

“Kevin?” Cecil asked as the other man brushed past him and limped down the rickety folding steps.

“It’s okay. Jacob liked the outdoors. He should be with his windmill.” Kevin nodded to himself as he headed up the rise, jacket in his arms.

“Of course.” Cecil agreed stepping down too and glancing back where Carlos stood off from the trailer. The scientist waved him over and Cecil hesitated, wanting to follow Kevin, but realizing he didn’t need to. He could see him. Carlos was trying to give him space and so should he.

At the scientist’s side, warm arms immediately enfolded Cecil, and he turned to watch the now small form of Kevin carry Jacob’s windbreaker to the foot of the massive rusted windmill. It was a beautiful morning: the sun was shining and the sky was dotted with bright white storybook clouds. As the morning air warmed, there was the buzz of a fat bumblebee on the the yucca blossoms nearby and a cactus robber’s trilling bark.

“I know this is private,” Cecil whispered. “But I can’t bear it. He looks so small. Someone should—“

Carlos caught his waist. “Nope.”

“But it’s not fair!”

“It’s not.” Carlos agreed. “But he needs to do this. He needs to.”

“Why? What will it fix? How is this not torturing him?” The radio host twisted against his partner’s grip.

“Because it belongs to him. You know he wants to say goodbye. And he needs to. It’s his.”

Cecil grew still finally. “I don’t like him to be alone.”

The soft fond look in the scientist’s eyes was infuriating. “Five more minutes.” Carlos offered. “Okay? Five minutes and you can go check. We both will. Can you do that?”

Cecil bit his bottom lip, watching Kevin put a hand up to touch the windmill, then kneel down, awkward with his crutch, at its base. “Okay.” He agreed at last.

For some reason the impatient and completely miserable look on Cecil’s face was making Carlos smile. He pulled the radio host in to lean on him and hugged around his waist tighter. “I love you.”

Cecil wouldn’t be distracted, but he pressed against Carlos until the scientist could feel him shiver. “I love you too.”

“Four minutes.”

“Stop it.”

 

When the clock on Carlos’s cell, if it was to be believed, showed five minutes had passed, the pair started up the hill quietly.

Kevin was seated at the base of the windmill, his back to them.

As the pair approached, they could see that he’d shed the heavy glasses and was holding the jacket against his shoulder and cheek, both arms wrapped around it. He was rocking a little and his voice could be heard singing so soft:

“You are my sunshine,

My only sunshine.

You make me happy when sky’s are gray.

You’ll never know dear, how much I love you.

Oh please don’t take my sunshine away…”

 

 

_...to be continued_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that final bit with the song?  
> I ran across a post on Tumblr where someone came up with Kevin singing that song and I lost it.
> 
> Seriously, it was like this little drabble -- just a few lines and I was like, "What is this stuff leaking out of my eyes? Omg. What the snot is wrong with me?"
> 
> I got up from the computer, and then when I tried to locate it later, I couldn't find it.  
> Anyway, 100% full credit to the creator of that head canon -- this chapter is for you.


	19. Vanessa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shade tells her story.

Kevin sat up straight and leaned his back against the reassuringly solid metal of the wind turbine.  He wasn’t sure at what point he’d teared up, or taken his glasses off, or how long he’d cried, but here he was: eyes shut against the blinding morning sun that felt warm and pleasant on his face and a sizable wet spot on poor Jacob’s jacket. He took a deep breath, feeling shaky and felt around for the glasses. Putting them back on, he spotted Cecil and Carlos down the hill. The scientist looked like he was collecting rock samples, holding his arm out to weight them with a spring scale and then scribbling in a notebook while Cecil drifted close by picking wine cups. 

What to do now?

Smoothing the jacket under his hand, Kevin frowned. 

_It smelled like Jacob._

The scent was the secure warmth of Jacob’s belly and chest along Kevin’s back, knees up behind his knees at 7am when the work week alarm made them both groan…

It was the white flash of his wide eyes and broad grin as he waved a newly approved construction permit at Kevin…

It was gentle calloused fingers turning his cheek for a better angle at a goodnight kiss…

Kevin stopped himself from bringing it to his nose again and tried to relax and think.  He just wanted to sit here, maybe forever, and feel warm sunshine and the solid realness of the windmill and keep the jacket safe in his lap. He should have asked to go to the radio station first, and ended the day here. Cecil and Carlos would have let him stay and stay, maybe until the sun went down.  

“I don’t want to leave you, but it’s not right for me to carry you around… And this is your place. I’m sure this is where you’d like to be.” He said softly drawing the coat to his chest as he leaned back. He folded his arms over it and sighed. “Just a little bit longer, though.” And he closed his eyes and tried to imagine the hillside in color instead of the sepia of the sunglass lenses.

“Hello Kevin.”

He blinked, seeing the shadow outline standing over him. “Hello.” He told her, no longer stammering in her presence. Not after the hospital.  He stole a glance down the hill, but Cecil and Carlos were still absorbed in gathering bits of the desert.

The shade cocked her head and knelt to sit in front of him, never mind that a hunk of basalt and tuft of buffalo grass could be seen inside her shape.  But she was starting to take on defined characteristics now, like a photo clarifying in silver emulsion. Her hair came into focus, and he wasn’t wrong about it before; it was very like Maureen’s coppery red curls. It didn’t occur to him to wonder why he could see the reddish cast, he was too busy trying to tease out if he could really make out the shape of her eyes and see just a hint of pupil and lashes.

“What is it?”

“It’s you. I always thought you were so lovely.” Kevin breathed. “Please, not that me knowing could help anymore, but what happened to you Vanessa?

Her mouth dropped open, making a perfect silent black ‘o’ as empty and dark as one of the orbs of his eyes. “You don’t remember?” If it were possible, he thought he could see her wide empty eyes rimming with tears.

Kevin shook his head. “I-I started to remember more things. I remember you making us that funny ginger tea, and that your eyes were really green, and I remember after you got the internship you were so excited you bought that orange scooter so you could get to class and the station on time—“

She nodded eagerly. “Yes.”

“But then this?” He tried to touch her hand in illustration and both their eyes flicked down as his fingers passed right through her cold ones as easily as the rocks and plants did her body. “It’s important and I’m so sorry I don’t remember it because I know I should.”

The shade’s gaze searched Kevin’s face, until finally the immaterial eyes met his pitch black ones.

“You tried to save me.” She said in a small voice. “The swarm slipped into the station, and we were in the booth, and we saw the sales team and the receptionist all jerk around — first like they were trying to rake something off and then like an electric current was jolting through them. Lauren was next, and she was screaming and screaming, but we couldn’t see what was wrong. At first you wanted to go help, but when she stopped clawing at the back of her neck and looked at us…  You - you pushed me back and locked the booth door. That look was horrible, like she’d gone mad. We didn’t know what it was…”

She stopped and studied Kevin, as though hoping this would jar his memory and save her from continuing. No such luck.

“We were scared, and you took my hand and then Daniel ran in — ran straight past management’s office and Lauren and the sales crew. And now they were all just standing and smiling. He wasn’t clawing at himself, just running flat out and he slammed so hard against the booth glass he bounced. And he started pulling and banging on the door. I remember his knuckles were bloody and he was begging us to open it.  And you were going to, Kevin. You always liked Daniel. But then we saw them. A whole swarm. It wasn’t like Lauren where she just felt where it entered on her neck. Oh god.

“It was awful…

“They engulfed him. He dropped down on the floor and he was covered and when he got up they were massed over him, but when some of the bugs parted and we could see his face, he wasn’t… I don’t know how to explain it. He wasn’t made out of… Out of…”

“Human.” Kevin offered.

She bit her transparent lip and nodded. “He was them. Completely. And he got down and released two under the door.”

Pausing, she looked hopeful again that he might fill in the rest, but he only nodded wanting her to continue.

She took a breath. “They each climbed one of us - like squirrels circling a tree. It was so fast we couldn’t turn and scrape each other’s off. You were faster though and grabbed yours with one hand and mine with the other right as they were starting to burrow in. I think your right hand must have had mine? You held on so tight and you kept telling me it was going to be okay.  But even though they weren’t all the way in, they began to shoot out those threads and try to pull themselves, like anchors. …And I guess they decided they had to have you…” She frowned and swallowed thickly.

“Me? Why do you say that?”

“Mine wrapped its threads around my throat and pumped them into my skin right in front of you. It was a ploy—I know that now. When you saw, you let go of yours to try to get mine off.” Her head dropped. “It took you even as it made you watch me die.”

“Oh Vanessa.” He reached for her, cringing as his arms passed through her.

“I’m so sorry Kevin. I don’t ever want to leave you. You were my best friend.”

He wanted so much to be able to touch her, to put his arms around her. “I’m so sorry. I-I’ve missed you…” He watched her reach forward and set a shadowy hand on the jacket, as though testing to see if she could feel it. His eyes grew thoughtful at this. “But if you’re able to stay here… …Isn’t Jacob where you are? And won’t I come there too?”

The shade rocked back on her heels at this, hugging herself as she flickered and violently shook her head.

“Why not?”

Her eyes looked tearful again as they met his. “I’m not sure how to explain it. I’m the scrap of me that went into the hive. The hive saves everything —it’s a collective. The bug that killed me plugged in enough that some part of me was saved and I was able to find you and stay in you. When that thread left over in you dissolves I’m afraid I will too.”

“No.”

“I’ll be with you until that happens. I promise.”

Tears ran from Kevin’s eyes and he hugged the jacket tighter. “But Jacob isn’t with you? He’s not in the hive?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“No Vanessa. I think that’s a good thing. Whatever happened to him, he didn’t get taken then. He didn’t have to fight one of those things.” He buried his face in the soft twill and allowed himself another breath of the familiar scent. “He didn’t have to be afraid. At least not of them.”

 

_...to be continued..._   and next, a visit to DBCR...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, it's another shortie chapter cos that's what I'm able to do right now.  
> ...Slowly but surely I will get to the end of this.  
> Or not.  
> Feel free to vote pollice verso in the comments. ...Or poke me with a stick if you're still awake.


	20. Desert Bluffs Community Radio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys continue their tour of Kevin's old haunts.

 

 

“Does anything look familiar?” The scientist glanced across the car.

Kevin pushed up his dark glasses and shook his head, unable to resist smiling a little at Carlos’s brown eyes, which had flashed wide and curious with the question. They were winding up Calendula Lane, which climbed through a subdivision before connecting with Main Street — According to Carlos’s GPS. None of these silent roads rang any bells for him. The flashes in his head, the snatches of memory, had all been in Technicolor, like if Dorothy’s Kansas and Oz had been flipped and her home were all emerald greens and buttery gold and canary.  The bits of Desert Bluffs Kevin’s misfiring mind had let him glimpse were vivid with rich Halloween orange and poppy red striped rocks of the mesa the town sat on, the almost icy robin’s egg blue of the Kingman turquoise pendant Vanessa used to wear, and the streaking soft lavender that closed their spectacular sunsets.  But the rows of dusty prefab houses they passes looked washed out and insubstantial, like an abandoned Hollywood set, just a shell left out to bleach until it was the color and flimsiness of  dry brittle newsprint.

“I’m sure something will click when we get into town. Maybe it’s the glasses - maybe I don’t recognize it without color?” He offered Carlos a hopeful look and snugged his arms around Cecil, who didn’t lift his face from where it was hidden against Kevin’s neck, his head resting on his shoulder.

All three of them were riding jammed together in the front seat.

Earlier, Kevin had managed to place Jacob’s neatly folded jacket on a large flat slab of sandstone in the sunshine at the foot of the wind turbine, and was surprised and pleased with himself that he felt a certain peace with the act. 

He knew where it was. It was a good spot and had a nice view of the desert valley and the sky — all things that would’ve pleased Jacob.  Composed, he told Carlos he was ready to go to the station.  But it was Cecil who began crumbling then… The radio host had twisted and dropped the cluster of wildflowers he’d picked down the hill, and he couldn’t hold his hands or his bottom lip still.  When they got in the car, he made a strangled noise and followed Kevin into the front seat, like a scared and embarrassed child. Carlos looked concerned, but Kevin only opened his arms and let him press in close, swallowing but smiling a little as he kept his head up and watched the scenery change behind his dark lenses.

“I wasn’t expecting it to be this abandoned.” Carlos breathed as they turned onto Main, their path crossed by a stray tumbleweed and some blown bits of paper. He flipped on the radio and pressed seek, but nothing but static popped and cracked as the tuner searched.

“Me either… I had hoped, but…” Kevin stopped and just stroked Cecil’s hair watching the dark sepia faces of office buildings and the library drift by. “So everyone here, in this neighborhood, worked for Strex?”

“By Vanston’s accounts, yes.” When the dial made the loop back to NVCR, now re-airing highlight clips from the pledge drive, Carlos snapped it back off.

Kevin frowned, but nodded. Sandwiched in the middle, he couldn’t help but catch glimpses of the backseat in the rearview mirror. Vanessa’s shade sat back there, grey arms crossed, head cocked at him, before she turned and faced out the window at the ghost town too. “This is terrible.”

Carlos slowed the car, pulling over to the curb. “We don’t have to do this. Today’s supposed to be about going where ever you like. Where ever would make you happy.” The scientist’s eyes searched for Kevin’s through the black lenses, before sparing a downward glance to Cecil, curled against and possessively clutching him.

“I know. And maybe it would be different if I could go to my house — but I can’t.  I really do want to go to the station. Cecil understands. It’s like your lab. The station is our other home.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

The lack of activity, the deserted streets, none of these things changed on the remainder of the ride. When they moved out of the municipal area and began climbing the road further up the mesa that led to the station proper, Cecil finally straightened up and looked around blinking. Off one side of the road, far below, all of downtown Desert Bluffs could be seen, like a miniature train set town, and beyond that was a sweeping expanse of desert stretching on and on. It took Cecil a moment to realize the thin ribbon dividing it had to be Route 800.

“It’s quite a view from up here. I never realized.”

Kevin smiled and pointed ahead over a Joshua tree and some scrub. “Look. You can see the broadcast tower.”

Desert Bluffs Community Radio’s station was a sleek and compact two story building faced along the edge of the mesa with reflective tinted windows overlooking the valley and town. To Carlos it resembled one of the shiny new offices high dollar tech and pharmaceutical companies he’d done contract work with were fond of building. “Did Strex redo the station?” He asked.

“Yes!” Kevin seemed surprised when the answer popped from his mouth. “I remember that! They did! Right when we became privatized. They upgraded all the equipment and even let us pick out some of the fixtures and colors— so long as it matched their branding. Vanessa and I were so excited. It was like Christmas!” He caught himself, and quickly looked to Cecil before adding more quietly, “That all just came back.”

Cecil smiled. “That’s great. Maybe more will too.”

“I want to see my booth again.” Kevin added.

“Kevin.” Cecil rubbed his arm. “I’ve been there once before—“

Carlos broke in here. “You remember what he described?”

Kevin nodded solemnly. “But it could be another memory prompt. To knock things loose. We… We don’t have to stay long.”

“We’ll stay as long as you want. I just wanted to make sure you were prepared. That you weren’t expecting something else.” Cecil told him.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Inside it was dark. The windows, like many office buildings, had thick reflective tint, so enough light filtered in to let Carlos find the switch in the foyer. He flipped it a few times, but nothing happened. Other than the power having been cut, and the potted ivy and philodendrons flanking the elevator doors being dried out and dead, nothing looked especially amiss with the entrance area or the reception desk, or even the first row of cubicles visible beyond the lobby.

“My booth is on the second floor.” Kevin frowned, glancing up at the darkened elevators.

Cecil linked arms with him. “We’ll take the stairs.”

Carlos pointed to the letter board directory beside them. “It looks like all the administrative offices are down here.”

“Mm. That’s right.” Kevin nodded. “HR is right back there.”

The scientist looked a little brighter. “So there’s a chance I could find your old pre-Strex employment record. We could still find your house.” He grinned and flipped on the flashlight on his cell. “I’m going to see what I can dig up while you visit the booth.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

The stairwell was completely black, and Cecil also switched his phone to its flashlight mode. He wanted to get this over with.  Yes it was for Kevin, and he wanted to help him visit his old haunts, but he held no hope that what they might see would jar his memory or even give him any scrap of nostalgic pleasure. Kevin’s broadcast booth in Cecil’s memory was something from a horror movie and to Cecil, Kevin’s inability to recall this and his disbelieving shock to connect himself with what made that vision of hell, were small mercies that had been granted him. As they climbed the concrete steps in the echoing utility stairwell, he steeled himself for what was ahead. ‘Get in, get out, and try to pick up the pieces and focus on better things.’ By the last step, this sentence had become a mantra, and he swallowed and ran through it one more time before pushing the door open to the second floor.

Up here, things were more disheveled. Cecil had to blink a bit and flip off the phone before his eyes would adjust to the dim light. He took a few steps forward and tripped on something.

Kevin caught him. “It’s one of the cubicles. They’re all piled up by the elevators.  Maybe they were switching to an open office concept?” He craned his neck to look over the nest of grey portable walls haphazardly shoved before the door to the stairwell and the entrance to the elevators.

“You can see okay?”

“Mm. Yes. It’s a good level in here. Perfect actually.” Kevin plucked a stray Post-it note from the corner of a leaning bulletin board and read it easily:  it was someone’s reminder to pickup a prescription and some cans of Fancy Feast gourmet chicken grill. He wondered if the author’s cat had ever gotten that meal…

“And the booth? Ah, it has to be back there. I think I can see the glass…” With both hands, Cecil began to feel forward and work to navigate around the jumble. 

Kevin followed, but despite the inexplicable mess of office furniture, there were things that were making little twinges and sparks go off in his head. He recognized the cheery yellow and orange honeycomb pattern of the carpet, and, passing a shifted over cubicle that was still mostly intact, he recognized a cute motivational poster of sunflower blossoms following the overhead arc of the sun.  Whose desk was that? She was a copy editor, right? Her name was on the tip of his tongue… He picked his way through the debris to get a closer look, and then he saw it beyond: The break room. 

Smiling, Kevin remembered Vanessa in there between shifts, working on college papers at the formica table and making ramen in the microwave. He used to bring two sandwiches, one for each of them, because ramen noodles were no kind of lunch. The windows were dark, but Kevin didn’t care — he headed for its door hoping he could still see a little inside. “Cecil?” He called softly. “Over here. I- I recognize this…” And then much quieter, “Vanessa? Are you here?”

Pushing open the door, the break room was empty though. No Vanessa making her ginger tea or ramen. No shared boxes of donuts or scent of coffee.  He sighed, then wondered why it was he couldn’t make Vanessa manifest just by thinking of her, if she was, after all, only a piece of his stored memory? On the counter was an assortment of coffee mugs in the drain rack and Kevin picked through them, smiling a little to find an old chipped one with a vintage DBCR logo on the side. Maybe the threads that stored Vanessa in him were already breaking down. Or maybe her being stored in him was different than being a literal memory. Maybe it included some autonomy for her like she was artificial intelligence?  Of course it did. It’s not like he’d done the leg work to bring her back to his consciousness. Kevin smiled, liking this disjointed theory better.

A faint thump and some muffled bumping noises made Kevin jerk his head up. 

Where was Cecil? Kevin felt a stab of guilt. He’d wandered off and it sounded like Cecil had tripped over more of the obstacle course outside. “Cecil?” Kevin called, poking his head out of the break room.

There weren’t anymore bumping noises. Nor was there an answer.

Kevin swallowed, eyes running over the barricade —it was barricaded furniture—blocking his view of the far wall where the broadcast booth and production rooms were. He listened, but didn’t call out again. Then he saw it. The top of the glass door of the booth, what was visible from where he stood, arced open, wagged momentarily, before silently swinging shut again. Unable to see what was moving it gave Kevin an icy chill, like he was watching something paranormal. ‘It was Cecil.’ He told himself firmly, but he still didn’t call out again as he slipped towards the booth to investigate. 

 

 

In the far corner lay the enormous glassed-in fish tank of the broadcast booth. From the main room, a windowed divider wall created a sound damper, but just inside this was the dark On Air sign over the doors to the booth proper and the narrow alley with the producers sound and mixing board. For some reason, Kevin’s heart was pounding. No one was visible through the windows, and that alone was making panic pulse through his body. Adrenalin made every scrap of haziness from the anti seizure medication flee, and small lights popped behind his vision as he pressed himself to the wall, out of view of the open gaze of the windows. Behind the glass, he heard another dull scrape and bump, and he ducked down to peer over the window sill.

Someone inside climbed to their feet and straightened up, and they were not Cecil. The darkness of the booth only fed Kevin a shadow of the person, but it was not Vanessa either. They were shorter, and as they fussed to brush off their skirt and smooth their jacket, Kevin saw the once familiar swing of jaw-length bobbed hair.

He swallowed and scooted away to press his back into what he hoped was a corner hidden from the glass, but to his horror, the door to the sound barrier wall swung open and the petite form poked their head out and turned immediately to him.

“It feels like I’ve waited an eternity for this Kevin, but once I realized you were back here, not squirreled away with the others — oh god. I know you must be confused, but please come in. I’ve tried to get it all ready for us!”

“I-I…” Kevin stammered, dumbfounded, to see Lauren Mallard’s emaciated face.

“I know. I know. I will explain everything. I know where you’ve been, and what they’ve done to you and what that disgusting scientist took from you Kevin. I have excellent hearing! Especially now! Please, please, come see your booth and what I’ve done. _Everything is going to be just fine now._ ”

Lauren’s eyes, Kevin realized were now just as black as his own.

He couldn’t think of what else to do. Trying to blink back his shock, he took a few hesitant steps forward, and followed Lauren’s wave of welcome as she held the door open for him and gave the booth the sweeping ‘wow’ gesture of a gameshow hostess. “It was the hardest to find the _teeth_ , and I know it’s a little dry, but we can make it feel like home again, like the great big pleasant happy cozy nest it was!”

But Kevin didn’t notice the dark wash of old dried blood, or the new packrat-like caches of a few molars mixed with pebbles, bones, small trash and even broken seashells Lauren must have collected  and strewn over the desk and shelves… 

On the floor by Kevin’s old chair, lay Cecil. 

He was on his side, unconscious, with a trickle of blood seeping from his hairline. Lauren had tied him with the microphone cord and whatever else she’d found trailing under the desk.

“Well? What do you think?” She waved to the deserted chairs, the unlit sound board, then watched him as she shifted from foot to foot, antsy to try to hold in her joy.

He tried to stay frozen and neutral, mind desperately working on what to do. “I—I don’t—“ His eyes flashed around, before meeting her eager gaze, baffled.

Lauren’s face melted with concern. “You don’t recognize it yet. Oh Smiling God… That’s what that nasty little lab rat _thing_ did to you, isn’t it. Kevin? Do you even know me Kevin?” She looked on the verge of tears now.

Kevin couldn’t describe the feeling pulsing through him. That was _his_ Cecil limp on the floor, hurt, bleeding and trussed up in electrical cords…

Gapping at Lauren, some small pop went off in his head…  And he immediately forced a soft questioning look to his face, then let it melt into pleased recognition. “Lauren?” He asked tremulously.

Her black empty eyes brightened, widening with utter delight. “Kevin? Oh, Kevin!”

Even as he molded a sweet smile and met her gaze, his mind didn’t let go…

Cecil.

The arms that had held him gently night after night, wrenched and pinioned behind his back. 

His Cecil. Carlos’s Cecil. 

The person who had known what a monster he was, what horrible things he’d done, but only saw human Kevin.  Cecil who had fed him, bathed and dressed him and made him feel safe and loved and welcome in his home…

“Oh Kevin…” Lauren gasped. “I’ve missed you so much!”

“Lauren… Why, I-I’ve missed you too!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many apologies for letting this languish a while. We're clawing our way to the end though! Really! Only a little ways left! (I promise!)
> 
> Um, Anyone there?  
> ...Still reading?


	21. Symbiosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is it still the 4th of July? I'm gonna go wave a sparkler or something.

 

 

“Like an enemy, hiding in the depths of your own body” 

—Lauren Mallard, Company Picnic

 

 

Lauren’s black eyes went skyward as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Thank the Smiling God, you’re still in there. You have no idea how lonely it’s been. And listen, I know how it looks. I know it looks really empty, but just like when I initially joined to help build Strex, you and I now, we can rebuild the company together. We can fix all this. All this is just our raw materials.”

Kevin met her gaze with confused, pleading eyes. “But Lauren. How can this be fixed? I don’t understand…”

She bit her lip and nodded quickly. “I know. I know. It seems impossible without our work force…”

“Where did they go?”

She looked away and leaned back on the soundboard, pounding it with a clenched fist. “The Smiling God giveth and He taketh away…” She muttered bitterly. “I’m sorry. I know you aren’t linked anymore - no more than I am - to them. To the hive. I’m sorry.” She nodded to herself. “I need to explain. Which seems silly, to have to tell you, to have to tell _Kevin_ of all people. I still can’t believe what that fool did to you.” She reached up to touch his cheek and Kevin caught her wrist and pulled it away firmly.

“Try Lauren. Try to explain.” He made his voice stern.

She heaved a sigh and met his eyes, as though telling him a shameful secret. “After that buffoon threw you through the door, everyone continued to fight. I think we could have prevailed, but the hive —not Strex — the hive, heard His call and retreated.”

“Retreated?”

“It will make more sense when you’re whole again.” Lauren told him. “I can make that happen. You won’t have all your original memories. But I can fill in the gaps. I’m sorry, I’m jumping ahead… You remember that StrexCorp bought the station before we were visited by the light?”

Kevin faked it. “Of course. You. You were vice president.” How had that memory resurfaced?

Lauren beamed. “That’s right. And then the Smiling God sent his people to visit us? To join us and unify us into a productive whole?”

Kevin forced a small smile and nodded.

“Well.” Said Lauren darkly. “He works in mysterious ways. Apparently the Smiling God felt Strex was no longer a good fit for his branding.” She growled.

Baffled, Kevin shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“They fled. While Strex’s goal, as you know, was to continue to add to its value by creating opportunities for hard work and striving for the pinnacle of human productivity—“

“All wonderful things…” He agreed encouragingly.

She brightened. “Right. And of course our goal was also to surpass our previous quarterly profits…”

He shrugged. “Also wonderful. Hard work should be rewarded. And sometimes the rewards need to go to those who make that work possible!”

“Exactly!  But those bugs… those bugs.  Apparently their universal dimensional goal is to just increase themselves. Anywhere. Everywhere.” Lauren growled.

On the floor, Cecil shifted.

Where was Carlos?

 Fighting not to look at Cecil, Kevin stayed focused. “My, that sounds really really selfish. Explain.”

“Of course. When they came here, it was to colonize, and they needed hosts. They needed hosts large enough to give them energy and that they could employ and bond with, and since they function as a hive, they wanted a social animal that worked as a group. Ants and bees are too small. A bug could enter maybe a rat or even a bird, but it would deplete them — take too much of their energy — and you know, I think they really wanted opposable thumbs?”

“Thumbs, uh. They are useful.”

 “Right? Anyway, they saw the company, saw Strex, and decided the corporation was the structure they needed — the closet human equivalent to their hive organization.  But they didn’t understand the nature of a corporation. All of their acquisitions, their work to absorb and bond and control, it’s covert. The public takeovers, the open resistance… The more they realized they were in danger of being revealed, the more the signals and consensus decision of the group mind changed. Their over-soul, our beautiful Smiling God, called them back through the riffs they use to travel and they abandoned Strex and left her workers to die without them.” She looked defiantly at Kevin. “But not me. The scrap of the Smiling God in me, it understands me. It understands Strex, and we resisted and stayed.” She stamped her foot, but then her stare softened as she gazed at him. “And now you’re back.” She said reverently. “Kevin, it was so lonely. And I know my isolation could be nothing compared to yours having your link to us all, your link to Strex, and His light, taken from you… But if I could resist to stay and wait for you, I can enter a riff and retrieve what we need to make you whole again. Give you a new link to the Smiling God.”

Kevin touched the back of his neck reflexively, and Lauren saw.

“I know what you’re thinking. I know. It won’t be the same. You won’t remember old Desert Bluffs. But you and I will be partners again and as you liked to say, you will be Now. The Now of this Desert Bluffs!”

Cecil twisted again on the floor and Lauren glanced at him. “We can have friends too,” she offered, “others to bring into Strex, just as it was when we were at our peak of productivity!” She looked back at Kevin, her face brimming with hope. “Kevin, you were everything we wanted Strex to be. The embodiment and soul of Strex.” She reached forward and touched the largest and deepest of the scars on his cheek. “To show such commitment. It scared me at first, but now I understand.”  

On the floor, Cecil gave a low moan, starting to come around.

Kevin’s eyes flashed wide to him. 

…And Lauren’s eyes narrowed. “You’d like us to have more friends, right? Why not start with the ones who ripped you in two?”

Gritting his teeth, Kevin nodded, forcing a fresh smile “That sounds peachy.”  He felt his hand ball into a fist.

“The other one, your butcher, he’s downstairs, isn’t he?” She smirked, and gave Cecil a kick.

The kick was the dam breaking. 

Kevin flew at her, slamming her onto the desk, across it, and onto the floor. Lauren shrieked, and twisted away clawing at him, but Kevin didn’t feel the blows. He was roaring at her, grabbing her shoulders, forcing her down. Kneeling on her with all his weight, his hands fought behind her neck with singular purpose. The lights flashing behind his eyes were a strobe of red, but all he knew was that he wanted to rip that thing out of the back of her head and spine. 

He knew - no he could _feel_ \- precisely where it was. 

He knew the pressure needed to force fingernails into human flesh, and the depth where its abdomen could be found, a hard lump, writhing as is worked to assemble and push out its new biomechanics neurons.

All of his senses recalled the damp tang of warm blood and sought to bring that smell from memory back to reality…  And then, with perfect clarity, he understood about his studio, his gore painted walls, desk and soundboard. He understood the flaw, the enthusiastic mixup  of quick symbiosis where the bug signaled his instinct and commanded him that his studio must be a hospitable environment of flesh and viscera, just like what surrounded it embedded in his body…

It was so simple, it seemed obvious now, and he understood.

It was all a sick mistake. Two worlds, two species, that should never have come in contact, and was now just an evolutionary dead end as far as the bug’s history was concerned. They had moved on. He and Lauren were just left overs.

Kevin’s fingers slowly stopped scrabbling at Lauren’s neck, and he caught her wrists to stop the frantic blows she was raining down on him. Struggled to just pin her as she fought and bucked, he shifted his knees off her chest.

“Kevin?”

Cecil was blinking dully at him across the floor.

“It’ll be okay.” Kevin was crying. “Carlos is coming.”

 

………….<o>………….

 

“Ow!”

“This needs a stitch.” Teddy Williams finished pressing down the edge of the medical tape he’d used to close the cut at Cecil’s brow line. “But he’s not concussed.”

“I told you she grabbed me around the neck.” Cecil sniffed, flinching as Williams caught his chin to look at his pupils again. He huffed and held still, embarrassed.

“You probably caught the corner of the desk when she pulled you down.” Carlos frowned and looked behind them at the producer’s booth, where Lauren huddled watching them like a feral cat. The SSPO from the hospital stood watching her too, gloved hands clasped behind her back. Having a limited number of help resources, Carlos had called her and she had brought Dr. Williams, tearing him away from afternoon pee wee league practice.

Kevin sat shoulder to shoulder with Cecil on an overturned desk just outside of the broadcast booth, both of them with Carlos’s lab coat drawn over their backs. He felt light-headed, and cold… The edges of his vision were shivering with new lights, making what he could focus on a smaller tunnel in the center. That was okay, right? Cecil was safe. Carlos was here and had gotten help. That’s what mattered.  Kevin worked on keeping his head up… and breathing… and trusting Carlos to make the next decision…

“What about her?” Cecil tipped his chin at the officer, then winced from the motion. “We’ve got another bug. Can she help us? Do we try to negotiate?”

Carlos frowned. “I don’t think we can risk appealing to the Sheriff’s better nature to just trade, Cecil. It’d be like when they took the device at the hospital. We alert them, and there’s nothing to stop them from just taking Lauren — and maybe arresting us to eliminate witnesses. We need to think this through…”

“He’s right.” The SSPO said grimly, turning from the window to face them.

Cecil nodded, looping his arm around Kevin’s and lacing their fingers together. Kevin’s hand was chilly… “There is a difference from the hospital though,” He told them and began fishing in his pockets. “He’s the sheriff of Night Vale. But we are in Desert Bluffs.” He held up the keys Vanston had given them. “And we’re on Strex private property.”

 

………….<o>………….

 

For once Jake wasn’t crying. 

He hung back, hugged his tablet computer and looked eagerly over at Carlos and Cecil in the foyer of the DBCR lobby before flashing them a big grin. Upstairs, Kevin and Dr. Williams (who’d had quite enough of angels, thank you) stayed with the SSPO guarding Lauren.

Before them, silhouetted against the daylight from the glass front doors, loomed Marcus, er, Erika, his raised wings all but blotting out the sun. When the parking lot began to fill with patrol car after patrol car, and a black police van, he bristled a little, but just watched and waited. Only when the pounding wind swept the lot and the Sheriff’s helicopter touched down did he finally reach, cross body to drag its immense length from the ether, and raise his flaming sword.

The lobby filled with blinding gold light. 

Outside, rows of black clad officers threw up an arm to cover their eyes, while inside Jake squeaked and bounced on the balls of his feet. 

“That thing is so freaking cool!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still clawing our way to the end...  
> :)  
> I think we might be to the final chapter?  
> Also, since I'm hearing what sounds like War of the Worlds outside, anyone have any ideas of what fireworks might be like in Night Vale?


	22. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys head deep inside the vague yet menacing government agency, or perhaps it's the basement rec room of the Sheriff's Secret Police? A lot of this stuff is top secret, so don't tell anyone what you see here.

 

As the van cruised down what Carlos thought had to be Route 800, Kevin shifted against Cecil’s shoulder. 

Earlier, no one in their little adventure party actually heard what transpired between Vanston and the Sheriff in the lobby of the DBCR building, but all had seen that it involved an agreement in writing.  Marcus snapped his fingers to summon Jake, who happily hunched over to offer his back as a desk, while the angel directed the Sheriff to sign a scroll in multiple places with a flaming pen that moments before had been an eight foot burning broadsword.  

When Carlos had balked at the SSPOs ushering him, Kevin and Cecil into the back of the windowless police van, the angel waved him off with a hand.  “It’s fine. They’re arresting Lauren, not you.”

“But—“

“Look, they may agree to let you in on some of their research and give him that thing back, but they are not going to let you see the location of the facility. You know that. Relax.”

Now the three of them were seated together on a drop seat with several black masked officers, Kevin corralled between Cecil and the scientist. Unlike Carlos, Cecil seemed less uneasy about simply stepping into the custody of the vague yet menacing government agency, but the scientist fidgeted, eyeing the officers around him and craning his head trying to look through the opening into the cab for a glimpse out the windshield. Automatically, the driver pressed a button and the hold closed up, baring his view and sealing the cargo area. Pale blue auxiliary lights lit the chamber as they continued to bump along.

Kevin’s hand fumbled up and scraped off the dark glasses before he blinked a few times dully.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Cecil tilted his head down.

“They don’t work anymore.” Kevin breathed, confused. “Carlos?” He blinked some more and rubbed an eye slowly with his fist.

“Don’t work?”

“No Kevin, remember, I told you they only work outside? In sunlight? We just have some little lights in here.” Carlos put a hand on his shoulder, noting that the dimness was close to their altered light arrangements at home. “Tell me what you can see?”

Kevin lifted his head, blinking. “Nothing… It’s all dark.” He wheezed and burrowed closer to Cecil, who wrapped both arms around him.

“You can’t see at all?”

Kevin shook his head weakly against Cecil’s chest, and Cecil stilled him, spreading his hand over his crown.

“Okay. I’ve got you. We’re right here.”

“I don’t want to be a monster…”

Carlos swallowed and squeezed his shoulder gently, then rubbed his back. “No one’s going to let that happen. Maybe they’ve learned something from it. Maybe they can make a different one or change it’s programming? We don’t know yet.”

 

 

………………<o>………………

 

Sometime later they were herded from the van into a grey hanger-like garage and directed towards a long white hallway. Kevin staggered, but when one of the officers moved to grab him, Carlos stepped between them and scooped him up. “Hug my neck. There you go.”

From the hallway, they moved into a blank walled elevator where it was uncertain if they moved up, down or sideways, then through security check points that scanned badges and an assortment of body parts, and through an airlock and on and on… Carlos held Kevin to him and followed Cecil and the surrounding pack of SSPOs, until finally they were brought into a dim lab room containing only a medical exam table. 

“What is this?” Carlos lay Kevin on the table in time to see the officers file out. “There’s no one here.”

One officer stopped at the glass door that was beeping and sliding shut. Cecil hurried to it, but the officer waved him back. “It’s a quarantine area. We’re being ordered back.” She hissed, and both Cecil and Carlos recognized the voice coming through the mic on her helmet as the SSPO from the hospital. “I’m being told to tell you to wait.” She backed away to fall in line with the others disappearing down the hallway.

“We can’t wait!” Cecil yelled through the glass. He pulled at the seam where the door sealed and looked frantically around the small room. Carlos wondering for a moment if he was going to panic, throw himself at the door, but he only froze and steeled himself with a few deep breaths before returning to Kevin. 

Kevin leaned his head in Cecil’s hands, shivering, eyes closed. 

 

Sometime later, the lights came up in the lab and a wall panel from the outer room slid open to admit… an astronaut?

A figure dressed helmet to toe in a thick industrial body suit approached, pausing outside their small lab to remove first a glove, then unlatch and shuck off the helmet, until Cecil and Carlos found themselves looking at the grimacing face of a researcher who couldn’t have been more than nineteen. The stranger waved a tablet before the door and it slid open to admit him. He brushed past Cecil and Carlos to skim the device over Kevin’s length on the table.

“Jesus. There’s not much to him left is there? Project Alpha said the divested shells only last about a month.” He turned to Carlos, seeming to recognize him as a fellow man of science despite his lab coat still being wrapped around Kevin. “How many days out is he?”

Carlos stammered.

“This is who they sent? I thought Marcus said they had someone who would help us!” Cecil demanded.

The young man glared at him, but only lifted the tablet and with a quick careful swipe, made a glowing image project large and clear into the air before them. The bug, rendered in thin yellow glowing lines, appeared dissected, diagramed and labeled, five feet tall in 3-D, detailed right down to the damaged sections to the head and abdomen both Carlos and Cecil remembered.

Both men gaped at it, and when with another swipe the researcher made it vanish once more, Carlos made a desperate sound. 

“Bring it back…” He hissed.

“I thought that would shut you up.” The young man snorted.  “And yes, I am the one they sent. I’m Beta lead and the head on this project. The angel promised you access to information and the old device in exchange for the other conjoined bug and host.  Defining that as ‘help’ might be a little generous.”

Cecil drew himself up, indignant, but then thought better of it and struggled to temper his voice. “I’m sorry.” He offered stiffly. “As a citizen not usually having any negotiating leverage or rights, you could understand if after being left alone locked in a room we might think we’d been tricked. Even with, er, Erika’s agreement…”

The researcher passed his device over Kevin a few more time, studying the screen. “Mph. Seriously? You thought we were going to welch on a deal with an angel? Who would risk doing that? I mean, do physics even apply to those guys?”

Cecil flinched hearing him say ‘angel’. “According to Josie’s long distance bill, yes, physics definitely do.” He muttered. “But I see your point though.”

“That diagram?” Carlos’s eye flicked from the researchers face to the tablet and back. “You’ve been able to dismantle it? Study it?”

Beta brought back up the diagram. “We’ve been able to gain detailed scans, but not dismantle it—“

“Enough to recreate it? Or to retrieve Kevin’s memories? It looks like…”

The young man gave the scientist a withering look for interrupting him and Carlos shut up. Straightening, he pointed into what remained of the bug’s head, where some data nodes were labeled. “The information encoded here isn’t schematics for the devices.  If it still contained that data, the device would have been able to self-repair or possibly replicate. Instead it’s effectively cauterized and removed damaged sections, and continues to try to re-implant. We know this from direct observation.”

“You mean they wouldn’t normally try to put themselves back into someone automatically?” Cecil moved close to Kevin’s side where he lay on the exam table, holding his hand and gently stroking his hair. 

The young man scowled. “The others fled. They could’ve stayed where they were, or slithered into people in Night Vale, or they could have implanted in the research team here who held the arrested Strex employees. But they didn’t. With a singular purpose every last one of them took off.  This one’s different — it tries to re-implant with any human within reach. My theory is that the damage destroyed it’s power cells, so gaining a host is self preservation to ensure an energy source. And in handling this one, I can tell you that the fully functioning ones must have juice to spare — they can do what they aim to do. And they must be able to covert energy almost instantly — even this crippled one has been quite powerful when it’s been in range of someone. Anyone coming close to handling it and the damn thing pumped those injector hairs into them destroying muscle fibre and nerves in a matter of seconds. One of the first researchers to touch it can barely grip a tennis ball with that hand now.”

Cecil, remembering the dots Carlos had shown him on his finger tips, grabbed the scientist’s wrist and reinspected each digit. There was no sign of the pinpricks. “How do we know it wouldn’t do that to Kevin?” Cecil asked, returning to stroking Kevin’s hair. When he took his hand again, he felt Kevin squeeze weakly, clinging to him. 

Cecil swallowed. Kevin was afraid.

The man shrugged. “No guarantees. As we’ve been unable to handle the raw bug, the only way we would know about memories recorded or absorbed from the host are to allow it to rejoin. You’re betting both that it’s imprinted with him and _wants_ to re-implant with a minimum of damage.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

The young man huffed. “Seriously? How many options do you have?”

Kevin tilted his head on the table toward their voices. “What’ll happen to Lauren?”

“That’s officially classified.” He smirked. “But she’s exactly what I wanted. Our best chance of understanding them is to have a spy that speaks our language. They’ll take that roach out of her over my dead body.  Now, you understand, our deal here includes continuing my research with _you_.”  He nodded to Kevin, then gave an exasperated laugh as Cecil immediately stepped between him and the table where the blind man lay. “Relax.  I want regular interviews. Nothing invasive. An hour, twice or so a week to study the re-implantation —assuming it takes.”

“And you’ll look for it reconnecting and repairing its network?” Carlos asked.

“Yes. Some progressive scans would be in order. As well as studying the symbiosis effect on his behavior, his personality. This team really truncated their own research looking at only the device and not it’s long term changes to its host.”

Carlos rolled his eyes and shook his head. “God, I know. That seems so obvious.”

“Right?” The younger man’s defensive expression relaxed. “Do you think that hive in any way anticipated an evolution where a conjoined drone and host would abandon the colony? I’m sure it’s unprecedented in their evolution. It doesn’t make her the ideal sample—“

“More of an outlier really…” Carlos agreed.

Cecil cleared his throat and the two scientists stopped to look at him and Kevin. “Kevin says regular check ups are fine.”

 

………………<o>………………

 

Kevin was laying on his side on the exam table, still in his regular clothes, but covered in surgical drapes. Cecil hoped that at least provided a little warmth, as he and Carlos watched through the glass window in the hall. His heart was in his throat and he’d had trouble letting go of Kevin’s hand, arguing that he should stay during the procedure. Beta had told him that no one could be in the room with him. “What would stop it from possibly selecting you instead? You look like you’re in decent physical shape.”

Cecil had scowled at him

“Out.”

“But—“

“I can have you removed.”

Kevin had listened to this, and despite being cold and scared, smiled a little. He felt Cecil and Carlos stroke his hair and kiss him, trying to reassure him, and he savored this and focused to keep his mind here… “We’ll see you soon.” Carlos had told him and Kevin heard the hitch in his voice. “Okay?”

“Soon.” Kevin had smiled.

Now, from a retracting interior wall, members of Beta’s team emerged, suited and helmeted. One swabbed the back of Kevin’s shaved neck with iodine and tilted his head where it rested near the edge of the exam table. Two others rolled in the containment vessel, a plexiglass cube with walls almost nine inches thick, and lined it up with the head of the exam table.

Cecil saw Carlos’s eyes go from Kevin, to the vessel, and recognize the bug that lay legs-up, motionless, within.

In seconds, its legs rippled, then curled to allow the thing to flip over. Both the researchers, despite being fully covered in what looked like inches of thick vinyl and durable molded plastics, bumped into each other in their hurry to exit the lab room.

Kevin was alone with the bug, and the bug was awake.

Framed in the window of the room next to Kevin’s, Beta lifted his tablet and swiped a pattern across the front of it. The wall of the containment cube glided up, and in a twinkling, the insect was out, on Kevin’s neck, stroking quickly with hairlike feelers, then merely a pair of vanishing legs and a slight rippling lump under his smooth shaved skin.

In less than a second, there was no other sign of the bug on Kevin than a thin rind of dried blood, like a thorn had raked his neck.

 

 

………………<o>………………

 

 

“And that means he’s doing good?”

“It means he’s stable and has decent vital signs.”

Carlos pointed to a monitor in the room with Kevin they could see from the window outside. “See there. Blood pressure, pulse. And below that is some brain wave activity…”

It had been an hour since the re-implantation, and based on how cautiously the first and only researcher reentered the room to attend to Kevin, Carlos suspected that one drew the short straw.  But once in, and having given Kevin a cursory scan of vitals without being pounced upon by nano threads or scuttling robotic vermin, the researcher gave the thumbs up and others entered, wheeling in monitors and equipment.  Now Carlos was trying to reassure Cecil who’d grown anxious seeing Kevin still laying limp on the table.

“Brain activity? But he isn’t—“ Cecil fidgeted. “Is he asleep?”

“He’s unconscious. It’s not exactly the same—“

“Is it doing this to him?”

“It could be…  But it looks like it’s rebuilding and working. It’s too soon to get worried. Okay? Having him sleep through this probably lets it work.”

“Do you know that?”

“Well, no.”

“Then you get to let me worry. What if it changes him back to Strex Kevin? What if it takes further control? What if it keeps him like this and just holes up inside of him like he’s it’s personal big human battery?”

“I don’t know Cecil. But I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“When I first found Kevin and we took him back to camp, he was in such rough shape… I didn’t know if he was going to make it. But before I found the bug, before it was removed, even though he was in horrible pain and hardly aware of what was happening, he was saying ‘thank you’ and ‘please’. He was like he is now — guileless, grateful. I think whatever damaged the bug — maybe whatever happened where he broke his ankle — I think that’s what did away with Strex Kevin, not me pulling it out. And as for the big human battery, it wouldn’t be a very successful parasite if it let its host waste away.”

 

The facility researchers kept Carlos and Cecil relegated to the windowed hallway, outside of the actual lab and clean room. And even though it was a wait and see affair, going home didn’t cross their minds.

“Station management is going to kill me…” Cecil murmured leaning his forehead on the glass, but he said it like an offhand observation, not like anything he cared to do anything about.

Carlos glanced from the cleanroom across the hall to an employee lounge. They weren’t leaving. Neither of them wanted to, but with everything Cecil had been through trapped in that broadcast booth with Lauren and now looking so stiff and banged up, Carlos wanted him to rest. “Let’s find some chairs.”

Cecil shook his head. “You look. I’ll stay here.”

“Right.” Carlos squeezed his shoulder and ducked into the break room. He returned a moment later scooting a plastic molded chair behind Cecil who sank into it, leaning his chin forward on the window sill to still watch Kevin. “Better?”

Cecil nodded. “Thank you.”

“There’s a couch in there. If you wanted to catch a little sleep, we could trade off.”

Cecil head was still throbbing and despite the false daylight of the bright fluorescents overhead, it felt very late. He knew Carlos was trying to help, but he didn’t want to let his guard down yet. Maybe Kevin was moments from waking up? What if he couldn’t see a familiar face? He offered Carlos a weary smile. “Maybe later.”

The night wore on, with researchers continuing to tape small sensors to Kevin and point foreign instruments at him. Carlos would have given his eyeteeth and possibly a kidney to get his hands on some of the mysterious technology he saw these workers handle as casually as a TV remote control…  One was a device they ran up the back of Kevin’s neck, and Carlos nudged Cecil and pointed, recognizing something similar to a sonogram when an image of ghostly spinal vertebrae and the outline of the damaged carapace of the insect’s body appeared on a monitor. Something that was neither light nor blood pulsed through it into Kevin and back, and Cecil swallowed, unsure if what he felt was a spark of hope or a morbid shudder.

He was so tired.

Everyone who entered and dealt with Kevin continued to suit up, their heads veiled in wide shielded hoods. How strange it looked with them surrounding the man in street clothes, who was curled on his side in the fetal position… Cecil began to think of them as bee keepers with all the thoughts of hives and bugs floating in his head… He blinked his eyes open again and turned to Carlos. “I think I will lay down a moment.”

The scientists eyebrows went up, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Carlos led him to the couch in the break room and spread his lab coat over him.

“Let me sleep an hour?”

“You got it.”

“Grab me if anything happens?”

“Immediately.” Carlos kissed his temple and switched off the lights for him.

Cecil sighed and closed his eyes.

 

 

Kevin was dreaming, but it felt quite real.

He was seven years old and playing in his grandmother’s garden. Most of it was under a bleached plastic sun shade, or was planted with cactus, but the area in the corner between the kitchen and the fence was green, carefully watered twice a week.  Kevin knelt under the shade of a pomegranate, surrounded by day lilies, daffodils and a few yellow irises, whistling a little as he arranged leaves and pushed twigs into the ground.

“How’s your city today?”

Kevin looked up and smiled, scooting aside so his grandmother could see. “I’m almost done with the post office. Look!”

From the corner of the house all the way to the back fence, a tiny metropolis snaked between the bulb flowers, ran through the herb bed and wreathed the trunks of the row of ornamental fruit trees. Made as though for the tiniest of people, like a train set, the town was built from dry leaves, sticks and twigs, bits of discarded tile and brick, dried cactus barrels and yucca blades. Some of the structures were three and four stories, with bridges joining them and leathery pomegranate hulls for minarets. Pebbles of similar size were artfully arranged to line curving streets like cobble stones.

Kevin had forgotten all this… Her garden and his miniature town…  A lump was forming in his throat to smell the familiar soft baked sand under his hands and to see his grandmother smile at him. Why? He was just playing like he always did.

“Look at that. They’ll be so happy to finally get some mail.” She put her hand on the top of his head before turning, hobbling stiffly over to refill her bird feeder. 

Kevin hopped up to help her.  He was good at lifting the lid so it was easier for her to pour in the seed mix. The birds seemed to scatter as much seed as they ate, so in a semi circle around the feeder was a  thicket of sunflowers and thistles.

“Such a mess they make. I guess I could stop watering over this way and they’d dry up.” She looked to Kevin who had begun jousting one of the sunflowers with a stick and watched it bob.

“I like them though.”

“Me too.”

“Besides, they make more free birdseed.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

When they were done, for some reason Kevin found that he wanted to take her hand in his and walk with her to the house. He looked back at his city poking up from the plants and felt a strange pang. Why did this all feel familiar? Why was it making him sad? He always liked playing at her house… 

Following her into the kitchen, he was awash in a warm sweet smell. Peanut butter cookies cooled on a rack, and she began scooting some on a plate for them to share in front of Wheel of Fortune before his parents picked him up.

Kevin went to get the milk from the fridge, and he paused, looking at the greeting cards and snapshots tacked to the door with magnets. One he swore had been the birthday card his mom had helped him send her looked different… Hovering over the image of a robin was a bright orange and yellow triangle, but when Kevin reached up to touch it, it dissolved like chalk dust. He frowned.

His grandmother clucked to get his attention. “Hands before the milk. You’ve been laying asphalt and sheet rock and who knows what else.”

He grinned, back in well known territory, and hurried to wash the garden dirt from his hands.

 

In the living room, the triangle returned, flashing on the couch pillows, then vanishing as they sat… Kevin felt a weird uneasy spot in his stomach, and scooted up next to her as she flipped to the game show. Among the cycle of channels, the triangle, no less bright for being slightly transparent, appeared a couple more times. Grandma didn’t notice, but Kevin frowned and took a bite out of a cookie even though his mouth had gone dry. He focused on sidling next to her, and laying his head against her soft middle. 

She turned up the volume a little before letting her arm drop around him and stroking his hair. 

“Who’s this sweet boy? I sure do like him.”

Kevin smiled. This was familiar and real — her warmth, the smell of her lotion and the cookies and the smooth texture of her cotton house dress. Not the weird sad deja vu or the funny things he kept seeing. He closed his eyes and sighed…

…………

 

Kevin stirred and blinked awake. He didn’t recognize the room, but he could see Cecil in a chair by the cot he was on, head tipped back, dozing. He could see him… Not an outline, not a shadow or a fuzzy dim blur of features, but all of Cecil…

“Kevin? You awake?” Carlos asked softly, and Kevin rolled over and turned his head to him.

“Carlos?”

“How’re you feeling?”

“Carlos.” Kevin said again, and then he couldn’t talk for smiling.

He could see Carlos too. In high definition, perfect light, perfect focus, clear rich lovely depth and color… Being Carlos, this was an awful lot to take in. Kevin needed to blink, but couldn’t take his eyes off of him.

The scientist looked a little bemused, and his brown eyes searched over Kevin’s face, concerned. “You’re feeling better?” He smiled.

“I-I can see you.” Kevin beamed and struggled to turn and look back at Cecil. “In color and everything. Are those little gila monsters on his shirt?”

“I’m afraid so.” Carlos laughed.

“They’re so beautiful.” Kevin breathed.

 

 

………………<o>………………

 

 

“And he’ll get copies of the results?”

“That’s classified.”

Carlos and Cecil were working their way through a massive stack of nondisclosure agreements, confidentiality contracts and formal waivers and releases requiring both signatures, initials, finger prints and sigil binding blood smears. Carlos flinched as his middle finger was pricked a third time.

“And the schedule for the interviews and checkups you mentioned?”

“Also classified.”

“How can he show up if—“ Carlos demanded.

Cecil grabbed Carlos’s arm and shushed him. “It’s the secret police. I don’t think we need to worry about that.”

The Beta researcher smirked. “No. You’ll know what you need to worry about when we need you to worry about it.”

“I want access to Kevin’s follow up tests.” The scientist growled. 

“And as an associate to the, er, technical owner of the piece of Strex equipment, I’m prepared to make some accommodation… I understand you’re a regular at the Desert Flower’s league night, Mr. Palmer?”

“I am.”

Carlos sat back down.

“Excellent. I’ll be in touch with our Strex contact there.” Still smirking, he raised an eyebrow at the irritated scientist. “You should come too. They have beer.”

 

………………<o>………………

 

 

Back at home, the three made it to the master bedroom, burrowed under the covers and slept pressed together for close to twelve hours, too exhausted and relieved to worry about the lab, station management or anything else.

 

In the days that followed, Cecil and Carlos were prepared to look after Kevin as they had before, but despite the fact that he was just as happy with their attention and just as eagerly affectionate as he’d always been, Kevin felt better. He didn’t wear out as quickly, or get confused. Sleep seemed to finally recharge and refresh him and he woke alert. To Carlos’s amusement and Cecil’s thinly veiled horror, Kevin was a morning person. He would rise with Carlos, make the first round of coffee with him and watch with a bit of wistful envy as the scientist tied on his sneakers and left for a jog — something he couldn’t do until his ankle was fully healed.

He might have started to go a little stir crazy at the apartment, but Sarah Sultan, impressed with his work at the pledge drive, invited him to interview for a teaching position with Night Vale Community College’s new RTF program — which he aced and happily began a paid training curriculum immediately. He got his cast off and was able to ditch the crutch in favor of a three week stint in a Velco support boot, and he began to gain some weight back, losing the starved gaunt look from his time in the desert. Running into the goth girl from Dark Owl Records, Tabitha, the two hit it off arguing the importance of Alice Cooper in the history of theatrical rock and rock opera. When she learned about his new job, she insisted on taking him clothes shopping in Pine Cliffs.

“You cannot go in front of students in Palmer’s hand me downs. That’s a big steaming pile of nope. Besides, Pine Cliffs residents have a much more forward thinking fashion sense than the living.”

“It’s not all black, is it?”

“Heh. No. Don’t even worry about that, sunshine.”

Despite all of this autonomy, Kevin didn’t go back to staying in the guest room. He continued to sleep in the master bedroom, often curled in Cecil’s arms or resting against Carlos’s chest, and felt a swell of pleasure whenever he heard either of them refer to it as ‘our room’. Picking up on this, Cecil coached him to practice thinking of and referring to it this way too. During these games, Kevin would indulge his other new favorite past time: trying to decide what color Cecil’s eyes were.

 

But there was something else different about Kevin. Something that left him quiet and possibly even sad, though he hid it well around others.

Carlos suspected it when he asked Kevin about his apartment or details about Desert Bluffs. “Are any of those things coming back? If we knew where it was, we might be able to get your things.”

Kevin swallowed, and tried to smile. “A lot of that came back Carlos. It’s weird… It feels a little like it’s walking through me and slowly turning on the lights in each room? But everything about my apartment came back pretty quick.”

“That’s great. So we can find it for you.”

Kevin shook his head. “There’s no point. There’s nothing there. I gutted it into a Strex workstation, ah, I guess about the same time I did this.” He gestured to his scarred face and sighed. 

Carlos wasn’t sure what to say, so he just slid an arm around Kevin’s shoulders and squeezed, which seemed to be a welcome response.

 

A few days later, Kevin opted to walk home from work.  (In fact, he had received an anonymous note that he should “start walking home from work regularly, for really important reasons” and this seemed like an easy enough request to satisfy for the Sheriff’s Secret Police.) He passed by the construction site of the new Night Vale Opera House and stopped to admire the relief carving in the white marble facade.

Lost in thought, he hardly noticed the light motion of feathers move beside him.

“Hey.” The angel tipped his chin at Kevin, all eyes studying the carving work on the building.

“Hello.” Kevin said.

“Buildings are like boats, you know. It’s supposed to be good luck for them to have eyes.  I had them do my old face right on top of the columns there. See it?” The angel pointed to a man’s marble face looking out from the facade. “I had a pretty great human face. Even if only one pair of eyes.”

“It’s very nice.” Kevin agreed.

“Yeah. Definitely.” Marcus nodded, then looked down at Kevin curiously. “What’s eating you? Carlos won’t ask, but he was all weird when he finally brought my keys back, and he says you seem depressed, but he doesn’t want to worry you that he thinks there’s some sort of messed up Jekyl and Hyde thing going on now that you’ve got the wind up toy back in there… Anyway, whatever, right?”

“He thinks I’m depressed?”

“Yeah, Look, as someone currently dealing with Strex, if it has to do with that, you are not going to surprise me. I dare you. Try to.”

Kevin laughed a little. “It is that, but it’s not surprising.”

“Some of your memories came back.”

Kevin swallowed. “All of them.”

Seven pairs of eyebrows went up, but the angel kept his voice measured and even. “Whoa. All of them?”

“Mm hmm. Obviously, it’s different. Very different. My old memories of my actual life came back, but also the conversion and who I was and what I did for the company. I’m intact, and I can sort them and understand them and keep them all separate, but they are still there. The corporate jargon, the bug’s impulses and commands from the hive and how I melded those together and manipulated and hurt people… It’s, ah, useful to teach marketing and call to action strategies in class, but a lot harder to just live with, you know?”

Marcus cocked his head, meeting Kevin’s black bottomless gaze. The eyes should have looked creepy, but instead their darkness just made them resemble a sad animal’s. He blinked seven pairs of gold ones back. “Man. Okay, so I spent so many years as this total selfish prick. Really. The titanium cars… nude private libraries… rare animal buffets for just me and Jake.  God. It was awesome… The best. Anyway, you know what? So’s this,” He gestured to his long stature and pumped his wings a little. “I mean c’mon. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You seem like a pretty cool guy now.”

Kevin smiled, considering Marcus thoughtfully. It had only just occurred to him that he wasn’t the only one he knew who’d been transformed and lost their old life to the Strex takeover.

“Mr. Vanston—?”

“ _Erika._ ” The winged being corrected.

“Thank you, Erika.”

 

As for the mandate to walk home, by a few months later, Kevin was pretty used to being kidnapped and bundled into an unmarked black panel van by the SSP about twice a week on his way home from Night Vale Community College. He would be interviewed and scanned at an unidentifiable location, then un-blindfolded and dropped off on the corner of Somerset and Earl road where he would jot down what he could remember of (slightly edited and highly redacted) test results for Carlos. (The rest the scientist could ask about on bowling night.) It was a regular part of his work week routine. If the kidnapping occurred on a Friday, like today, he would meet Cecil and Carlos for sundaes at the White Sands afterwards to share his progress report.

“Is the bug subject to ice cream headache?” Carlos wondered, sucking the remaining chili mango sorbet from his tasting spoon.

“You know…I don’t know. I’ve never tried to brain freeze it.” Kevin smiled considering the fresh batch of honeyed cinnamon and chrysanthemum gelato Lucy was lowering into the display freezer. 

She raised her eyebrows at Carlos.

“Two scoops then.” He told her. “For science.”

 

...........<o>...........

The End

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there it is.  
> The whole schmoodle, beginning, middle and end. I really hope you liked it.  
> I, uh, have a totally different relationship with Kevin now. How strange is that?
> 
> And, while this is it, this story is technically all wrapped up, you might have noticed that there's still that open ended question mark by the chapter numbers... While I was writing the ending, I also ended up writing a few scenes of some stuff that happens several months down the line from this. It exists in this universe -- as in I would consider it confusing if someone hadn't read this first -- so I was considering tacking it on here as maybe a bonus chapter?  
> Would anyone be into that?
> 
>    
> Or not?
> 
> Edit 7/14/2015  
> My apologies to the commenters who replied on the above about adding the bonus chapter. I think I've got cold feet and should probably just leave it alone.   
> Also, for offsite comment snark-ers. If you don't like something, remember, no one made you read it.   
> Okay? Ok.


End file.
